October 31, 2011

Ukraine ships out 4.4 million tonnes grain for 2011/12 season

For the 2011/12 season, Ukraine has exported 4.4 million tonnes of grain, a senior agriculture ministry official said on Friday (Oct 28).

Deputy Farm Minister Oleksander Demidov said the volume had included 1.699 million tonnes of wheat, 1.822 million of barley and 847,400 tonnes of corn as of October 27.

Demidov gave no comparative figures but his data shows that the former Soviet republic exported just 1.1 million tonnes of grain so far this month.

Ukraine exported about 1.7 million tonnes of grain in September and 1.3 million in August.

The country plans to export a record 27 million tonnes of grain in the 2011/12 season against 12.7 million in 2010/11, but the slow pace of exports in the first months of the season has raised concerns over the forecast.

Analysts have said the exports could not exceed 24 million tonnes, including 8-9 million tonnes of wheat, 9-10 million of corn and 3-4 million of barley.

Mykola Vernytsky from ProAgro consultancy said that Ukraine was likely to accelerate grain shipments in November-December to about 2.5 million tonnes per month, while the pace of exports would fall to about two million in January-February.

He said Ukraine could export a record three million tonnes of grain a month in March-May.

Ukraine operates more than 20 river and sea ports which have the capacity to export about 3.5 million tonnes of grain per month.