China to take 29% of Ukraine’s 3.5 mil mt Jan corn exports

Ukraine exported a total of 3.5 million mt of corn in January, according to the most recent lineups, which showed China taking 29% of that total.

That’s up 68% from January 2021, when the total was 2.05 million mt. The country’s crop for this marketing year (October 2021 to September 2022) is around 42% larger than the previous marketing year.

Of the cargoes that sailed between Jan. 1 and Jan. 31 this year 998,000 mt was destined for China, 443,000 mt was headed for Spain and 431,00 mt was going to Iran. A year earlier, China, Egypt and the Netherlands had been the top three destinations.

The January 2022 lineups, which were dated Feb. 1, included 30 ships that hadn’t berthed at the time of publication but had been due to arrive in port between Jan. 21 and Jan. 31. Those ships had been expected to carry 1.17 million mt of corn. All of the country’s main ports restricted loading operations late in the month due to poor weather.

Since July 1, 2021, Ukraine has exported a total of 18.02 million mt of corn, although roughly 1.1 million mt of those exports were marked as old crop and were shipped before the end of August.

That compares with corn exports of 11.4 million between July 2020 and January 2021, which included 429,000 mt of crop from the previous marketing year,

In its most recent update for Ukraine, the US Department of Agriculture said it expected the country to produce 39.66 million mt of corn in the 2021-22 marketing year, compared with 30.3 million mt a year earlier, allowing for exports to grow to 34 million mt from 24 million mt.

S&P Global Platts

Tags: Iran, Ukraine, China, Egypt, corn, Netherlands