Russia’s Black Sea wheat push sees Panamax loadings edge out Handy

The size of Russia’s harvest means Black Sea ports are favouring loading larger Panamax vessels over the typically smaller Handysize vessels, as logistics focus on moving out as much wheat as quickly as possible, trading sources said Thursday.

Handysize vessels – typically in the range 25,000 to 30,000 mt – are being marginalised as the larger Panamax vessels – typically 60,000 to 65,000 mt – allow greater volume to be moved more quickly. Corn loadings are also said to be sidelined to make way for wheat exports.

Russia’s grain harvest is set to top 140 million mt, with wheat contributing well over half of that volume.

With a record-breaking harvest, Russian grain exports have defied concerns over logistics bottlenecks as exports are up 26.3% year on year to 14.773 million mt in the week to November 15, data from the Ministry of Agriculture shows.

Total grain exports were at 19.118 million mt, 29.5% higher than at the same stage in the 2016/17 marketing year. Barley sales are almost twice as big as last year at 2.777 million mt, while corn sales are down 0.7% at 1.444 million mt.