Nook nook – Newspaper Kommersant No. 4 (7449) dated 01/12/2023

RSPP asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to help with the export of grain and oilseeds from the Crimea. The explosion on the Crimean bridge has complicated truck shipments, and purchase prices and demand in port terminals on the peninsula have decreased, the association points out. Officials are already arranging additional rail routes to reduce delivery times and costs. But experts note that there are still not enough opportunities for transporting a record harvest throughout the country.

Kommersant has read a letter from RUIE Vice President Pavel Lebedev to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin with a request to provide wagons for the export of grain and oilseeds from Crimea to the port of Novorossiysk, as well as for processing at oil refineries in other regions. At the end of December 2022, an appeal from the government apparatus was sent to the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev, as well as to the Ministry of Transport and Russian Railways.

As stated in the letter, after the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October 2022, the delivery of agricultural products to the mainland became more complicated. The Kerch crossing is primarily used for vital and perishable goods, and the land corridor through new regions is used for military needs, the appeal says. As a result, writes Pavel Lebedev, Crimean farms cannot sell their crops, which threatens with a shortage of working capital and, as a result, disruption of the 2023 sowing campaign.

In the Crimea, it is noted in the appeal, there are no capacities for processing oilseeds. And the purchase prices for wheat in local ports “unreasonably fell” to 11 thousand rubles. per ton against about 14 thousand rubles. per ton in Novorossiysk, the letter says. In the office of Pavel Lebedev, “Kommersant” did not answer. At Russian Railways, Kommersant’s questions were forwarded to the Ministry of Transport, where on December 11 they could not provide a comment.

As the head of the Crimea Sergey Aksyonov previously reported, in 2022 the grain harvest in Crimea increased by more than 33%, to 2 million tons, the oilseed crop increased by 37%, to 200 thousand tons year-on-year. For comparison: according to Rosstat, a record 150.98 million tons of grain and 25.65 million tons of oilseeds were harvested in all of Russia in 2022.

According to a Kommersant source on the market, until 2022, Crimean grain, which was not consumed by local livestock breeders and flour millers, was shipped through local terminals for direct export or for offshore transshipment in the port of Kavkaz.

But since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, increased attention has been riveted to the Crimean terminals, and any ship seen there is suspected of exporting grain of dubious origin, Kommersant’s interlocutor points out. According to Reuters, wheat from Crimea in 2022, in particular, was actively supplied to Syria. Three US-sanctioned vessels brought more than 500,000 tons from Sevastopol to the country, the agency reported. According to a Kommersant source, in the first half of the season, up to 800 thousand tons of grain were shipped through the Crimean terminals – this is a record volume. Low prices are associated with risks, unwillingness to work in local ports of global traders, a limited number of potential buyers of grain inside the Crimea, he points out.

Two Crimean agricultural producers told Kommersant that the main problem is low product prices, which make sales unprofitable. One of them says that shipments go through the port of Sevastopol, but in a very small volume. As other interlocutors of Kommersant note, there is an excess supply of grain both in the center of Russia and in the south, and it is difficult to find demand for the Crimean harvest. The United Grain Company, which manages the Novorossiysk Bread Products Combine (NKHP), explains that grain shipment capacities at NKHP are at their maximum capacity until March 2023. They are building a new pier and re-equipping reception points to increase the annual transshipment capacity of NKHP from 7.1 million tons to 11.6 million tons by 2025.

Andrey Sizov, director of Sovecon, notes that the shortage of wagons for transporting grain is now recorded throughout the country – this is a key infrastructure constraint for grain exports. According to him, at the end of 2022, the waiting time for grain carriers reached two to three months. According to Kommersant’s interlocutor in the market, the situation is improving: requests for transportation are planned months in advance and problems with a seasonal surge are smoothed out.

In addition, Mr. Sizov continues, in the case of Crimea, there are questions about the origin of grain. Large market participants are trying to stay away from grain from the peninsula, including because of fears of buying crops harvested in new territories, he explains. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, the way out may be for the state to carry out grain purchasing interventions in Crimea, but there may not be enough grain storage capacity on the peninsula.

The Ministry of Agriculture told Kommersant that a set of measures is already being implemented for the uninterrupted export of grain and oilseeds from Crimea. Thus, additional railway routes have been organized to reduce delivery times and reduce its cost, the ministry said.

Anatoly Kostyrev, Natalia Skorlygina