I was reading an article on Marine traffic today regarding the Ukranian's being blocked from exporting wheat to other countries around the world. The second most viewed ship is the Ukranian vessel stuck in port with 27 000 tons of corn which is enough to feed Egypt for 1 month.
I find it strange that a country at war is still able to think about exports as one would think trade could come later as surely there are more important things to be worrying about. Maybe I am missing something but this makes no sense as this is not business as usual.
The vessels name is Riva Wind and according to reports the Russians have mined the sea outside the port. Marine Traffic is like twitter for shipping and the top searched vessels over the last 24 hours are Russian 7/10. Nothing that is going on is going unnoticed and the shipping community know exactly what is happening.
The Ukranians are defending their crops plus all the fertilizers and seed storage facilities as they have been a target to destabalise the Ukraine world trade. The report suggests that there are 57 ships stuck currently full of wheat, corn and oil seeds and if they don't find a route out then the high prices we see today will rise and be around for at least the next 5 years. The shortages and finding new suppliers for grain will ripple even further than what we have seen. Weird to think that if the war ended tomorrow the recovery of prices will take anywhere between 36 and 60 months to stabalise and normalise.
The Ukraine is a bread basket for so many other products besides wheat.
Whatever happens there is no good news as this just adds to the inflation we are experiencing. Cooking oil we have already seen double in price so expect some other items to follow suit.