Now Ukraine has found some ways for export, which will help in the coming year to sell our stocks on the world market (Danube ports, Romanian and Polish ports). But this is not enough.

Before the start of the full-scale war, Ukraine had the ability to ship 5-6 million tons of grain per month. 92-93% of our grain went through the ports of the Black Sea. Currently, we can ship only 1.5-2 million tons through existing channels. It is unrealistic to replace the logistics that took place through Ukrainian ports with these channels. In fact, Europe’s infrastructure was not designed to run from East to West or from East to North. There are a lot of technical issues that cannot be solved at the moment, as well as it is impossible to increase volumes from 2 million tons to 5-6 million tons.

But the good thing is that we are already resuming shipment. The Ukrainian government is doing a lot for this and is resolving this issue as quickly as possible. If in April the export volumes amounted to about 1 million tons, in May they have increased to 1.8 million tons. Growth is slow, but keep in mind that it has limited potential.

“The only way to avoid the global food crisis is to unlock the Black Sea ports”

The actual indicators, which we take as a basis, predict our potential shipments of no more than 3 million tons of grain. This is not enough for export. If we take into account the remnants of grain in granaries left over from the last year, according to various estimates, we should ship about 50 million tons.

The World Bank estimates that more than 70 countries around the world will experience food problems due to the lack of grain exports from the Black Sea. There are different predictions in this regard. But in my opinion, the situation with wheat will be really threatening for the whole world if we would not open ports in the next few months.

African countries are unlikely to have grain stocks. In recent years, we have seen a trend of increasing wheat prices and everyone expected it to fall due to another good trend – a good harvest. Therefore, African countries did not have the opportunity to buy grain in advance. Therefore, the impact on these countries will be very significant: the price continues to rise, while volumes are declining.

Source: NV.Business