Key Takeaways
- Export capacity, not crop size, is setting availability. Russia and Ukraine have sizable harvests, but closed ports and congested alternative routes are capping how much reaches buyers.
- Lower sunflower seed prices haven’t continued to draw buyers back. Many buyers are still waiting despite lower prices at origin and relatively thin coverage.
- Ukraine is crushing more of its rapeseed at home. Around 42% of the 2025/26 crop was processed domestically, up from 14% to 16% the season before.
- Black Sea wheat is cheap at origin but costly to deliver. It remains the lowest-priced origin, while freight to Egypt has jumped to around $90 a ton from a usual $23 to $25 in the middle of September.
- Corn’s balance is tighter than wheat’s. Global consumption is forecast to exceed production by around 30 million tons this season.
Russia and Ukraine have harvested large crops this year. Getting them to buyers is proving challenging.
In a recent Expana webinar, Kyle Holland, Ben Barritt and Zanna Aleksahhina of Expana’s grains and oilseeds team assessed how Black Sea disruption is affecting sunflower, rapeseed, wheat and corn. One point came up in all four markets. The size of the harvest matters less than how much of it can be shipped.
Export Routes Now Decide Availability
Ukraine’s main deepwater ports of Pivdennyi, Odesa and Chornomorsk have faced severe operational disruption since July 2026, following an intensified wave of Russian missile and drone strikes. Although the ports have not been formally closed by the Ukrainian government, commercial shipping and terminal operations have been suspended or severely curtailed, with throughput falling from hundreds of thousands of tonnes per month to just tens of thousands.
Exporters shifted to the Danube, which helped at first, but the route is now heavily congested,with more than 80 vessels queuing around Sulina canal at the beginning of September.
After attacks on merchant ships increased in late July, insurers stopped writing new war risk cover for Ukraine-bound vessels and roughly 90% of shipowners halted operations in the immediate term . A recent attack on a ship reportedly carrying corn to Italy has spread concern across the Black Sea, where Russian shipments through Novorossiysk and the Kerch Strait are also restricted.
Sunflower: Lower Prices, Cautious Buyers
Market players put Ukraine’s sunflower crop at around 12.5 million mt, with official forecasts reaching as high as 14 million mt, up from roughly 10-11 million mt in 2025. Even so, trade expectations remain below the top end of that range, as harvest is not yet advanced enough for the highest estimates to feel fully confirmed with market players highlighting concerns with crop quality in southern Ukraine. More importantly, the market is now focused less on headline crop size than on how much of that supply can move to destination markets. With logistics still constrained, supply is building locally rather than clearing smoothly through the system.
That pressure is becoming more visible as harvest progresses. Farmers who had held seed in the hope of stronger prices later in the season had little choice but to sell in order to make room for new harvest, while crushers bought large volumes at lower prices, sources told Expana. Even so, storage and logistics are coming under greater strain. Expana has heard reports of wheat being stored in grain bags outside silos and corn being left in fields because of limited storage capacity, with market players expecting further pressure as more of the sunflower crop is brought in.
Under normal conditions, lower prices at origin and relatively thin coverage in the wider market would likely draw buyers back in and extend forward coverage further into the season. But that has not happened to the degree the market would usually expect.
Players said coverage within the sunflower complex remains unusually short for this point in the season, underlining how uncertainty around Black Sea logistics and overall execution risk is still preventing buyers from behaving in the normal way. “Usually, in a vacuum, people would come and buy,” said Holland. “But it’s not removing these execution risks.”
India’s move to effectively reduce sunflower oil import duty to zero has improved import economics and could offer some support to demand. Even so, palm oil remains the cheaper option, meaning the duty cut improves sunflower oil’s competitiveness without fundamentally changing the wider vegetable oil hierarchy. In other words, it is helpful, but not enough on its own to offset the market’s bigger concern over whether Black Sea supply can arrive smoothly, players said.
That remains the market’s central constraint. Alternative routes are slower, more expensive and less reliable than normal Black Sea operations, and shipping sources said more than 80 vessels were waiting at Sulina at the end of September even after procedural changes aimed at improving transit. With few market players expecting a fresh grain corridor deal any time soon, more meaningful relief still appears some way off.
Rapeseed: Ukraine Shifts From Seed to Oil
Ukraine is a major rapeseed supplier to Europe, so the July closures hit sentiment immediately. As Barritt explained, the concern wasn’t supply but whether the crop could reach European crushers.
The Danube and Rhine provided little relief, and low water levels have reduced barge capacity. Barge freight from Giurgiulesti to Constanta has been reported at around $75 a ton, up from $15 to $35 earlier this year.
Futures prices rose Q1-Q2 2026 as frost risk, the Strait of Hormuz crude rally and the July closures were priced in. Physical rapeseed oil has moved the other way towards the end of Q3. Expana’s Rotterdam benchmark has trended lower, partly because Ukraine was already exporting more oil and less seed. With a tax on seed exports in place, around 42% of its crop was crushed at home in 2025/26, and EU imports of Ukrainian rapeseed oil almost tripled.
Wheat: Low Prices, High Delivery Costs
Black Sea wheat remains the cheapest origin, with Russian milling wheat FOB Novorossiysk falling from around $215/t in early September to approximately $190/t in early October. However, sharply higher freight costs to Egypt, at around $90/t compared with a typical $23-25/t, have significantly eroded this price advantage, highlighting the growing divergence between competitive FOB offers and delivered costs. Global supply isn’t the issue. World production of around 822 million tons is just below last season’s record, though output has fallen in several major exporters.
Combined Russian seaborne grain exports fell to around 4.2 MMT in July-August, from 8 MMT a year earlier. Russia is seeking to compensate by redirecting volumes through the Baltic but rail and terminal capacity constraints, alongside transit restrictions introduced by Estonia and potential measures in Latvia and Lithuania, limit the scope for expansion. Alternative routes are being developed, however, these routes cannot replace the southern export corridor’s capacity overnight. Ukraine faces similar logistical constraints, including locomotive shortages, rail gauge differences at EU borders, pressure on the Danube corridor and persistent congestion at Romania’s Constanța port, where customs delays continue to impede shipments. “Buyers are looking for certainty at the moment,” said Aleksahhina. “They don’t necessarily want to buy cheap cargo just because it’s cheap if there’s a risk of delays or problems getting it out.”
Corn: A Tighter Balance, the Same Bottlenecks
Corn faces the same constraints in a tighter market. Global consumption is forecast to exceed production by around 30 million tons this season, for the first time in decades. A severe heatwave has cut France’s expected crop to 7 to 8 million tons, from 14 million last year.
Ukraine accounts for 10.5% of global corn exports and would normally help cover that shortfall. The corn is there, but from October it will compete with unshipped wheat for the same rail, road and port capacity.
What Market Participants Are Watching
Storage remains a key concern, withUkrainian farmers reporting that around 90% of modern storage facilities has been damaged. Market attention is also focused on export clearance, rising fertiliser costs ahead of planting and weather conditions.
Aleksahhina concluded that the disruption is rerouting trade rather than stopping it, though the alternatives have limits. Watch the full webinar on demand for the complete session and Q&A.
This commentary is prepared by Expana and its group of companies, neither of which is an investment firm. We have no positions in the commodities or derivatives referenced. The views expressed are for information only. See our disclaimer for more information: https://www.expanamarkets.com/disclaimer/
FAQs
Why isn’t cheap Black Sea wheat attracting more buyers?
A cheap cargo that has risk of delays or problems getting it out can end up costing more, so some buyers are paying a premium for Romanian, Bulgarian or Baltic wheat.
Will Ukraine keep exporting more rapeseed oil than seed?
Some market players forecast a 70% to 80% rise in Ukrainian rapeseed oil exports in 2026/27, assuming the conflict doesn’t disrupt crushing capacity.
Will Russia and Ukraine plant less wheat?
A significant reduction looks unlikely but it could be that farmers re-evaluate their planting areas due to logistical bottlenecks and high production costs.
Written by Sidney Udechukwu, Kyle Holland, Ben Barritt and Zanna Aleksahhina
