Black Sea Grain Flows: Romania's Record Wheat Year, a Rapeseed Rebound, and Bulgaria Losing Ground

Romania and Bulgaria are among the largest suppliers of grain and oilseeds on the Black Sea's western shore, and Eurostat's trade database has now published data for a complete marketing year, July 2025 to June 2026.

This is the first edition of Black Sea Grain Flows. It reads the export figures of the two countries for seven crops: wheat, corn, barley, rapeseed, sunflower seed, sunflower oil and soybeans. Three things stand out.

1. Romania's wheat: more tonnes, sold to fewer, at a lower price

Romania exported 9.04 million tonnes of wheat in 2025/26, 26% more than the year before. The increase came from three buyers. Saudi Arabia took 2.04 million tonnes, almost twice the 1.03 million of 2024/25, and moved ahead of Egypt (1.14 million, little changed) as Romania's largest wheat customer, with 22% of the total. Jordan took 0.94 million tonnes, 81% more than the year before. Algeria took 0.89 million, up from 0.43 million.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Algeria together bought 1.88 million tonnes more than a year earlier. That is almost exactly the whole of Romania's 1.89 million tonne increase: across all other destinations, gains and losses cancelled out.

Revenue did not keep pace with volume. The value of Romania's wheat exports rose 14% to €1.86 billion, so the average export price fell from about €227 a tonne to €206, a drop of 10%. In 2022/23 it was €315. These are customs values at the border, not market prices, but the direction is clear: Romania sold a record volume for little more than it earned from a much smaller one two years ago.

Press reports from the first nine months of the season, based on European Commission data, described the same picture, with Saudi Arabia doubling its purchases of Romanian wheat while Egypt bought no more than before (UkrAgroConsult, via Logos Press). Those figures count extra-EU shipments of common wheat only, so they are lower than the all-destination totals used here. The direction and the main buyers match.

2. Bulgaria is moving the other way

Bulgaria's wheat exports fell 17% to 5.27 million tonnes, from 6.38 million. It is the first decline in the four years shown, after three consecutive increases.

The loss is concentrated in Bulgaria's largest market. Algeria took 1.67 million tonnes, down from 2.67 million, and its share of Bulgarian wheat exports fell from 42% to 32%. Morocco, which took 0.45 million tonnes in 2024/25, shows no purchases at all in 2025/26. Spain (+0.32 million tonnes), Tunisia (+0.28 million), Greece (+0.16 million) and Indonesia (+0.13 million) took more, but not enough to fill the gap.

Taken together, the two countries exported 14.3 million tonnes of wheat, 6% more than in 2024/25. Romania gained more than Bulgaria lost. The data shows where the volumes went. It does not show why Bulgaria's Algerian and Moroccan sales fell, and we do not speculate on that here.

3. Rapeseed: back at a record, and Romania's second-largest export

Romania exported 2.50 million tonnes of rapeseed in 2025/26, the highest of the five marketing years we can see and 11% above the previous peak of 2.25 million in 2023/24. The comparison with 2024/25 is more dramatic, at 2.7 times the 0.91 million tonnes of that year, but that was a low: the 2024 harvest was hit by drought, and exports fell by about 60% from the year before. The 2025/26 figure is better read as a rebound to a new high.

Rapeseed now earns Romania more than sunflower seed (€682 million), barley (€483 million) or corn (€371 million), and only wheat (€1.86 billion) earns more. In 2023/24 it earned €1.00 billion. The trade is also compressed into a few months: 91% of the year's volume left between July and November, which fits a crop harvested in early summer and sold quickly.

The destinations are overwhelmingly European. Belgium took 0.88 million tonnes, 35% of the total, and the Netherlands 0.47 million: together 54%. Germany (0.27 million), the United Kingdom (0.18 million), Czechia, Hungary and Poland follow, with Pakistan (0.10 million) the main destination outside Europe. Belgian and Dutch ports are crushing centres and transit points, so the declared destination is not always where the seed is finally used.

Press reports are consistent with the data. UkrAgroConsult put Romanian rapeseed exports in July to December 2025 at 2.28 million tonnes, a record for the period (UkrAgroConsult, via CropGPT); the Eurostat figure for the same months is 2.35 million. Argus's 2024 crop tour had expected that year's rapeseed output to fall (Argus), and the 2025 harvest has been reported at about 2.8 million tonnes (UkrAgroConsult). We have not verified those harvest figures independently.

4. Corn keeps shrinking

Corn is the mirror image. Romania's corn exports fell to 1.77 million tonnes in 2025/26, from 2.13 million in 2024/25 and 4.63 million in 2023/24. Bulgaria's fell to 0.20 million tonnes, from 0.55 million and 1.06 million. Combined, the two countries now ship 65% less corn than two years ago.

Bulgaria has gone from exporting corn to importing it. Its imports reached 324 thousand tonnes in 2025/26, of which 300 thousand came from Ukraine, against exports of 196 thousand. Romania's main buyers also shifted: Lebanon (0.41 million tonnes) replaced Türkiye (0.25 million, from 0.39 million) as the largest destination.

Industry press attributes the long decline in Romanian corn to repeated drought and to farmers moving away from the crop (The Pig Site). The trade data shows the effect, not the cause.

The full picture

Here are exports of all seven crops from both countries, with the change on the previous year.

Thousand tonnes unless stated; marketing year July to June. €m = customs value of exports in 2025/26. Red = fall of 15% or more; green = rise of 15% or more. Soybeans: Bulgaria's exports are negligible. Rapeseed's 2024/25 base was a drought-year low: Romania exported 2,245 thousand tonnes in 2023/24.

Romania's exports rose in five of the seven crops and fell in two, corn and soybeans. Bulgaria's fell or stood still in five of the six it ships in volume and rose only in rapeseed, from a very low base.

What we think the data is telling us

Three things, in order of confidence.

First, and with the most confidence, corn has stopped being a major Romanian export, while wheat and rapeseed carry the mix. Corn exports have fallen by more than half since 2023/24 and have not recovered, whereas rapeseed moves with the weather: it halved in the drought year and came back the next. Between them, wheat and rapeseed now earn about €3.1 billion, against €0.4 billion for corn.

Second, Romania's record wheat year depends on a handful of buyers. Saudi Arabia alone took 22% of the volume, and three buyers accounted for the entire increase. Demand of that kind can move quickly in either direction, and the falling unit price suggests Romania is competing on price to win it.

Third, Bulgaria is losing ground in its largest market, and the data cannot yet tell us whether this is one year's disruption or a lasting shift. Bulgaria's recovery in Spain, Tunisia and Greece shows that it can sell elsewhere. The 2026/27 year will show whether Algeria returns.

What we are watching next

Whether Saudi demand for Romanian wheat holds in 2026/27, when Romania's harvest is again reported as a record, at about 13.4 million tonnes of wheat and 3.5 million tonnes of rapeseed (UkrAgroConsult). Whether Bulgaria's Algerian sales recover. And whether the Black Sea shipping route stays open: our Chokepoint Watch flagged an unconfirmed fall in Bosporus traffic since July, which would matter for the region's grain trade if confirmed.