February 9, 2012

 

Ukraine exports 225,000 tonnes of grain in six days

 

 

Ukraine exported 225,000 tonnes of grain, mostly corn from February 1-6, according to Ukrainian sea ports sources.

 

ProAgro said Ukraine had exported about 195,000 tonnes of corn and 25,000 tonnes of wheat so far this month. No figures for the same year earlier period were immediately available.

 

The consultancy said Ukrainian wheat went only to Israel, while the former Soviet republic supplied corn to South Korea (59,700 tonnes), Syria (23,000 tonnes), Egypt (20,400 tonnes) and Turkey.

 

ProAgro said an additional 795,000 tonnes of corn and 375,000 of wheat would be exported in the near future.

 

Ukraine exported 1.16 million tonnes of grain, mostly corn, in January. Ukrainian grain exports fell to 2.18 million tonnes in December 2011 from 2.29 million tonnes in November.

 

Last month, Ukraine exported corn mostly to Egypt, Spain and Iran, while it sold wheat to Spain, Egypt and South Korea.

 

ProAgro said last week that Ukraine's marine corn exports to Iran fell to 130,000 tonnes in January from 217,000 tonnes in December and 238,000 tonnes in November.

 

It said difficulties in payments from Iranian buyers were the main obstacle for the trade.

 

The consultancy said ports' data included the only future shipment to Iran at 10,500 tonnes of sunflower oil. It gave no more details.

 

Ukraine harvested a record 56.4 million tonnes of grain in 2011 and the Agriculture Ministry forecasts exports at about 23 million tonnes in the 2011-12 season.

 

Analysts forecast that the exports would not exceed 21 million tonnes this season. UkrAgroConsult agriculture consultancy said this week Ukraine's grain exports could be about one million tonnes in February.