South American grain exports are set to overshadow Black Sea shipments this year as doubts grow over a U.N.-backed Ukraine deal and international traders cut commercial activities in Russia.

That’s according to a top executive with major commodities group Cargill.

The Black Sea grain deal, which allows the safe passage of grains through three Ukrainian ports, was extended on May 17th for two months — a shorter time than expected.

Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill’s ocean transportation business, says it’s more focused on the smaller ship sizes now.

He thinks that with some quite big crops in Brazil, you might also see some of the demand being switched out of the Black Sea into Brazil at some point, on corn, for instance.

Record production of both corn and soybeans in Brazil in the current 2022-23 season has led to strong demand for vessels in South America.