The work of the grain corridor was resumed, but traders stopped purchases
The situation with the work of the grain corridor is becoming more and more difficult: the Russians periodically block the inspections of vessels without any reason. So, on April 11, inspections of ships were not carried out at all, and then the same situation was repeated on April 17.
According to the Ukrainian Club of Agrarian Business (UKAB), during April 10-16 (the 37th week of operation of the grain corridor), the number of ships loaded in the sea ports of Odesa decreased by 2 to 14 units compared to the previous week, although the volume of shipped products increased by 7 % to 702.3 thousand tons thanks to the larger tonnage of ships.
The main export items in the period of the 37th week of operation of the grain corridor were:
- corn – 56% of shipments,
- wheat - 18%,
- sunflower cake - 14%.
The buyers of Ukrainian agricultural products were the countries of Asia (China, India, Bangladesh and others), Europe (Spain, Italy and Portugal) and Africa (Egypt).
During the period of operation of the grain corridor (from August 1, 2022), as of April 16, Ukraine exported 28.1 million tons of agricultural products through it.
International and domestic traders have almost stopped the purchase of grain and oil crops with delivery to Black Sea ports, as they do not expect the extension of the grain agreement and are not sure that they will have time to ship the purchased volumes of grain by May 16 due to the blocking of the grain corridor and delays in the arrival of ships. After banning the export of Ukrainian grain to a number of EU countries, the Russians are making it difficult for the grain corridor, which, together with the Danube ports, remains the only channel for the export of domestic agricultural products.
World prices almost did not react to blocking the export of Ukrainian grain, as the main exporter of cheap grain this season remains the Russian Federation, which continues to export a record 4-4.5 million tons of grain every month.
