Russia Taps Smaller Ports to Keep Up Record Wheat Export Pace
- More small boats ferry wheat to cranes to load onto big ships
- Bumper harvests have strained capacity at Black Sea ports
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Russia has so much wheat that it can’t export it all via the usual methods, so shippers are increasingly turning to a once-rare technique to get more grain on boats.
Most Russian wheat is loaded on ships in the deep waters of the Black Sea, but those ports have reached their limit. So as a work-around, traders are putting more grain on small ships in the nearby Sea of Azov, the world’s shallowest sea, and sending them to deeper water to transfer the cargo to larger vessels.