Ukraine’s railways are dealing with a backlog of grain wagons on the country’s western border, as traders seek alternative export routes following Russia’s invasion, which cut off the country’s key Black Sea ports. According to International Grains Council data, Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter in the 2020/21 season, with the majority of its exports being exported out via the Black Sea. But with war raging along much of the coast, traders are scrambling to transport more grain by rail.
Ukrainian Railways had opened 12 terminals for traders, but wagons were backing up and the railways would need two or three weeks to process them and send to consumers. “Traders are continuing to search for the possibility of redirecting exports to the EU by rail or via Romanian ports, but the key barriers remain limited bandwidth logistics ability and its high cost,” APK-Inform said. It said the cost of delivering Ukrainian grain to the Romanian port of Constanta was €120-150 ($133-$166) per tonne. Before the war, traders paid around $40 to transport grain to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
