Black Sea countries have taken the world grain markets by storm this year, signing deals from Spain to the Philippines and snatching them from usual exporters.
Since the start of the season in July, Russia, Ukraine and other smaller Black Sea countries have won export contracts around the globe and driven world grain market prices down by offering feed wheat and barley at cheaper prices.
But analysts are wondering if the Black Sea competition may ease later on this season, given low storage capacities there and a lower proportion than expected of feed grain.
Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan together are expected to produce 71.5 million tonnes of wheat this year, of which 13.5 million tonnes are set to be exported, the US Department of Agriculture said this week.
"It's become clear that Black Sea countries are standing out as top world grain exporters," a European trader said.
The Black Sea's resurgence looks to some like an unpleasant replay of the 2002/2003 season, when the former Soviet Union breadbaskets came roaring back onto the international stage after years of poor yielding crops.
That season, Europe, typically a net exporter of grain, imposed import quotas to stop floods of mainly Ukrainian and Russian wheat.
This time around, grain prices in the European Union and in the United States have fallen to their lowest level in more than a year, with EU wheat now only a few euros away from the price at which farmers can sell their grain into public EU storage.
For barley, for example, the current EU public purchase price is around 50 percent higher than the current Black Sea values, analysts said.
In Asia, Russian and Ukrainian grain, especially wheat, is also giving headaches to US and Australian wheat exporters as they are encroaching on their traditional markets.
Black Sea wheat has already reached the Philippines - the first Asian nation to buy Black Sea-origin feed wheat this year, where it was a substitute for US corn - as well as Indonesia or Pakistan which recently bought Russian milling wheat.
"The price at which Black Sea feed wheat is being offered to us is very attractive. Many companies are looking at the offers," Ric Pinca, vice-president of the Philippine Association of Feedmillers, told Reuters.
Most of the recent Black-sea feed wheat deals were sealed at about $138-$140 a tonne C&F Southeast Asia, while Argentine or US corn was working out to around $150-$155, traders said.
But many observers said the pace of Black Sea exports would likely tail off in a few months due to a lack of storage as well as a lower percentage of feed grain - their flagship product.
"We are going to see some challenges from Black Sea feed wheat, and we are going to see them now because it has to be sold very quickly due to insufficient storage," said grains analyst Shawn McCambridge of Prudential Securities.
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