31 October 2022

Recently russia announced that it suspends its participation in Ukrainian grains corridor, so further grains export perspectives look unclear.

According to preliminary information from Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture, in October 2022 wheat export made 2M tons (1.75M tons in September), corn export – 2.3M tons (2.1M tons in September), barley export – 332k tons (432k tons).

Since the beginning of grains corridor operations Ukrainian grains export significantly increased, so if it will be closed, situation can significantly worsen.

In case corridor will be closed Ukraine will be able to export 1.5-2M tons of grains per month. It is higher than in the first months of the war, but much lower than in September-October.

As for the prices, current export prices in Ukrainian ports are by $15-20/t higher than export prices at Ukrainian export border. On the other side in case corridors will be closed we can expect growth of demand on logistics at Western borders, so most likely logistics costs for these routes will grow.

Increase of logistic costs will lead to lower prices on Ukrainian domestic grains market.

But in case corridor will be closed it should lead to growth of global grains prices which will be positive for Ukrainian farmers.

In total since the beginning of MY2022/23 Ukraine exported 13.2M tons of grains vs. 19.3M tons a year ago.

Total Ukrainian export potential in the current season – 15M tons of wheat and 32M tons of corn (assuming Ukrainian corn crop this year will make 28M tons).

General Ukrainian grains export statistics for the last several years is available here.

Ukrainian grains growing statistics (corn, wheat, sunflower seeds, soybeans - sown area, yields, total output) is available here.