Ukraine corn exports down 20% year-on-year as sellers sit on stocks

Ukrainian corn sales continue to lag previous years as sellers have held on to material and left exports 20.5% lower than at the same stage last year. Some 5.8 million mt of exports were recorded up to January 1, data published by the ministry of agriculture showed Wednesday.

Sellers in the domestic market have opted to sit on stocks and make use of new storage capacity, rather than discount and look to compete with more competitive material from South America.

A shortage of railway cars has also supported prices in the domestic market, with sellers struggling to justify lower prices with significant bottlenecks across the Ukrainian railway system.

Citing figures from the food safety and consumer protection agency, a similar picture has been seen in other Ukrainian grain markets across the 2017/18 marketing year, with total exports 10.3% lower on the year at 21.36 million mt, and wheat exports 6.7% lower than at the same stage during the 2016/17 marketing year.

A drop-off in sales of higher-quality milling wheat has weighed on the market, with the total down 11.4% year-on-year at 6.2 million mt.

Feed wheat sales, however, have picked up some of the slack left by corn sales and are up 2% at 5 million mt.

Barley, meanwhile, has dropped off 14% on year to 3.7 million mt as buyers have switched their attention to Russia where sales have almost doubled since July.

Oilseeds are showing mixed fortunes, with rapeseed sales more than twice last year’s figure at 2 million mt while soybeans have dropped 7.1% as total sales reached 1.3 million mt.