BUCHAREST, ROMANIA — With the end of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Ukraine could see up to 60% of its grain shipped through neighboring Romania, a growing export alternative amid Ukraine’s war with Russia, Reuters reported, citing Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu.

Ukraine has been one of the world’s top grain exporters, and Russia has been attacking its agricultural and port infrastructure after refusing to extend the year-old safe passage corridor brokered by the United Nations and Turkey following Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

Even before the deal fell through in July, Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta had become Ukraine’s biggest alternative shipping route. Ukraine shipped 8.1 million tonnes of grain through Constanta in the first seven months of this year and 8.6 million tonnes overall in 2022.

“We hope that over 60% of the total volume of Ukrainian grain exports will transit Romania,” Ciolacu said after meeting Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Bucharest.

He said Romania was trying to improve its connecting infrastructure by rail, road, river and sea, as well as at border crossings.

Romanian Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu recently said Romania, a member of the European Union and NATO, aimed to double the monthly transit capacity of Ukrainian grain to Constanta to 4 million tonnes in the coming months.

The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the US Department of Agriculture projects wheat output in Ukraine to decline to 17.5 million tonnes in the 2023-24 marketing year, down from the record 33 million in 2021-22. The FAS sees exports declining to 10.5 million tonnes from 16.8 million in 2022-23 and 18.9 million the year prior to that.

The USDA forecast corn production to dip slightly to 25 million tonnes from 27 million, while it expects exports to be slashed to 19.5 million this year from 28 million tonnes in 2022-23.