Weekly round-up of Black Sea grain market – August 8

Andrey Sizov 08.08.2022

10 vessels left Ukrainian terminals thanks to the grain deal, mainly #corn. The total volume of food products blocked in the terminals since late February was 0.6 MMT
Wonder what the quality is after 5+ months on board…seems that the buyer of the first vessel Razoni with 26K of corn refused to accept the cargo
The first two vessels arrived in UA terminals: Fulmar S (13K deadweight) & Osprey S (20K)…this is more important than “old” blocked vessels…if everything is OK we could see fresh demand +freight & insurance offers. UA corn is likely to be more than welcome in the EU suffering from drought…
The grain deal works better than we thought…that’s unexpectedly kind of the Kremlin. Still feel there is some kind of big Russian-Turkey deal and the grain corridor could be just one puzzle piece
Overall the grain corridor agreement still looks fragile…there is a full-scale war and Russia-Turkey relations never has been predictable. If I were in Ukraine’s shoes I will try to ship as much as I can and as fast as I can -> bearish
Ukraine has exported 1.9 mmt of grain since June…-49% YOY. Will we see 2MMT+ in August?
Russian exports remain sluggish….another 0.6 mmt shipped last week. Extremely slow pace for early August for such crop and S&D (bullish!)
Russian propaganda keeps talking about “hidden sanctions against Russian exports”…the reality is it’s just too expensive. Russian FOB is on par with MATIF…should be lower to boost the exports. The ruble market should tumble further or global prices should increase (or both?)
Are we close to a spike in #wheat prices? Could be if the May-August downtrend is broken at last…we still think that the downside is limited
Good rains (15-40 mm) helped UA #corn, RU was mostly but the setup for spring wheat remains good thanks to earlier rains
Rosstat issued important wheat area numbers…winter wheat – 16.7 mln ha (SovEcon est: 17.0 mln ha), spring wheat – 12.8 mln ha (SE: 12.7 mln ha). These numbers are substantially above USDA’s…they could reflect that in WASDE -> RU crop should be upped a lot in the August / Sep report
Based on sizov.report on the Black Sea