MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) — The expansion of grain export capacity at Russian ports will boost the country’s grain shipments by 30 million tonnes annually from 2022, Russia’s agriculture minister Alexander Tkachev was quoted as saying.
Russia is one of the world’s largest wheat exporters and its total grain exports are expected to hit a record 45 million tonnes in the 2017-18 marketing year, which began on July 1, but limited infrastructure has put a brake on further growth, analysts say.
The current modernization of a grain terminal at the Novorossiysk Grain Plant in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk would double its capacity, Tkachev told the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, according to the Interfax news agency.
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A project to develop Russia’s Black Sea port of Taman and construction of a new grain terminal in Russia’s far east would also in-crease grain export capacity.
“These (projects) will give us about 30 million tonnes of grain for exports in the next five years… . This is what would give us speed, turnover and low prices,” Tkachev told the upper house.
His first deputy, Dzhambulat Khatuov, has previously said that Russia aimed to increase its grain export capacity by 50 percent to 7.5 million tonnes a month within three years.
Russia has increased its grain export capacity ninefold over the past 15 years to about 45 million tonnes, but could export more if it had more capacity, analysts say.
