Ukraine’s 2021-22 wheat exports rise 17% on year; prices hit record high

Ukraine’s wheat exports were 16.9% higher year on year at 13.1 million mt from the July 1 start of the marketing year 2021-22 through Nov. 15, data released Nov. 16 by the country’s agricultural ministry showed.

Due to the increase in exports and an expected robust export campaign in MY 2021-22, wheat export prices reached a record high $330/mt on Nov. 12.
Ukraine’s wheat exports have gathered pace over the past few weeks as a tax hike on Russia’s wheat exports has led to a tightening in supply, traders said.

Export prices of Ukrainian wheat have risen over 2% over the past fortnight before steadying at the all-time high.

Platts had assessed FOB Ukraine 11.5% protein wheat at $330/mt on Nov. 15, unchanged from Nov. 12.

Traders, however, expect wheat prices to increase further as Middle Eastern nations are moving to Ukraine to source their requirement for the food grain amid repeated government interventions in Russia.

S&P Global Platts Analytics projected Ukraine to export 22.5 million mt of wheat in MY 2021-22, while the US Department of Agriculture forecast the country’s wheat exports at 24 million mt in its latest World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates released Nov. 9.

In MY 2020-21, Ukraine had shipped 16.6 million mt of wheat. The government has signed a pact with traders in October to limit wheat exports to 25.3 million mt in MY 2021-22.

As of Nov. 8, farmers in Ukraine planted winter wheat across 6.2 million hectares for MY 2022-23, accounting for 94% of the forecast area of 6.7 million hectares, according to data released by the agriculture ministry.

The wheat planting has been concluded in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Transcarpathian, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Sumy, Luhansk, Rivne, and Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy and Chernivsti provinces, the ministry said.

In Donetsk, Kyiv, Kirovograd, Mykolayivska, Kherson and Chernihiv provinces, sowing has almost reached the end, the data showed.

In MY 2021-22, Ukraine harvested around 33 million mt of wheat, up from 25.4 million mt in MY 2020-21, according to the ministry’s statement.

Platts Analytics has projected Ukraine’s wheat production at 31.2 million mt for the current July-June marketing year.

The USDA has pegged Ukraine’s wheat output for the year at 33 million mt, up from 25.4 million mt in MY 2020-21.

S&P Global Platts

Tags: Ukraine, Russia, winter wheat, wheat, wheat exports, wheat production, wheat export prices