Ukraine has increased its road grain shipments in the first half of October, aiming to send abroad as much as possible of its bumper grain and vegetable oil output, brokers said.
Spike Brokers said 277,000 metric tonnes of agricultural goods were exported by lorries from 1 October to 16 October compared with 271,000 tonnes in the same period in September.
For the whole of September, Ukrainian exports by vehicle totalled 514,000 tonnes against 506,000 tonnes in August.
'In October, the average daily rate of vehicles with agricultural products for export through customs checkpoints also increased,' brokers said.
The Ukrainian farm ministry said a total of 7.5 million tonnes of grain were exported from the country so far the 2023/24 July-June season as of 13 October.
Ukraine is expected to harvest 79 million tonnes of grain and oilseed in 2023, with the 2023/24 exportable surplus totals of about 50 million tonnes.
Black Sea Exports
The country exported 10.5 million metric tonnes of grain through the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta in the first nine months of the year, the port authority told Reuters.
Ukraine is one of the world's biggest grain exporters and Constanta is the main route out for Kyiv's crops since Russia quit a deal allowing safe passage from Ukraine's own Black Sea ports.
The nine-month data compares with 9.2 million tonnes shipped in the first eight months of the year and the 8.6 million tonnes shipped in 2022.
It does not include volumes handled by Romania's smaller Danube ports such as Galati, which bring monthly average volumes to more than 2 million tonnes.
The Romanian government has said it aims to double the monthly transit capacity for Ukrainian grain to 4 million tonnes in coming months, with investment in infrastructure ongoing.
Port operators are also investing in equipment to increase loading speeds. Ukrainian grain competes for space in Constanta, which traditionally handles Romania's crop exports and those of its landlocked neighbours, including Hungary and Serbia.
Overall, the port shipped 25.1 million tonnes of grains in the first nine months, the authority said, matching its previous annual record high.
Kyiv has relied heavily on export routes along the Danube but Moscow has repeatedly struck Ukrainian river ports since quitting the Black Sea safe-passage deal in July, with exporters also turning to road and rail routes.
Earlier this month, on his first trip to Romania since Russia's invasion, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a "corridor" would be soon be established to take Ukrainian grain to Romania via Moldova.
