The Black Sea market is ending the week with a notably different tone from the start: trade flows have rerouted, processors in the EU’s eastern flank face raw-material squeezes, and weather models now point to a wetter ten-day window for Ukraine and southwestern Russia. Together, these threads are rewriting near-term risk for crop balances, basis levels and freight in the region.

A key story is Romania’s role as a conduit rather than a destination for Ukrainian oilseeds. Official statistics framed 2024/25 as a “record” season for Romanian soybean imports, with about 270 KMT brought in by September–July and Ukraine cementing itself since 2022 as the largest supplier. Yet much of the flow has not stayed in the country: a large share moved through the Port of Constanța in technical transit to third markets. That nuance matters for price discovery and crush: domestic availability is far less abundant than headline import tallies suggest, while Romania remains broadly self-sufficient in vegoils and tends to buy only on profitability. “Record” therefore overstates the situation on the ground, with actual Romanian crush capacity still under-utilized and the soybean market balanced.

Policy frictions have amplified the transit effect. Processors describe the EC’s October 2023 special licensing regime as complex and slow, discouraging applications and channeling Ukrainian cargoes past local buyers. The result is a customs footprint without a domestic demand impulse, limiting any bearish pressure on Romanian farmgate or crush margins from those “imports.” Looking out to 2025/26, the mix could shift again if Ukrainian crushers find it more profitable to process beans at home, reducing raw-bean exports and, by extension, transit through Constanța.

Even as soybeans transited, Romania’s sunseed trade has stayed brisk. Lower national sunflower area in 2025 was offset by better yields, leaving exports broadly comparable to last season, with Turkey the key outlet in September–October. But forward margins look fragile: unless sunflower oil prices rise more materially into winter, crushing economics for Romanian plants and traditional EU buyers could come under pressure from October through March.

Across the Danube, Bulgaria has entered a defensive posture. Processors report an acute shortage of seed despite sizable installed capacity, after back-to-back drought years curbed the sunflower crop and global export restrictions constrained import options. Paradoxically, retail sunflower oil prices hardly moved over five years, while input and processing costs surged, forcing sales at a loss and prompting intermittent plant stoppages for lack of feedstock. The industry is now debating temporary restrictions on exports of raw sunseed and rapeseed in favor of exporting higher-value refined products and meal to keep factories running and jobs intact.

Bulgaria’s capacity vs. crop gap underscores the stress. The country built the ability to process about 4 million tons of sunflower seed, but this season produced oil that implies a far smaller crush throughput; companies have had to idle facilities and cede market share abroad while trying to pivot into rapeseed and soy as partial substitutes. Industry voices argue that prioritizing domestic processing over raw-seed exports could stabilize utilization rates and support employment. Area is not the immediate fix: sunflower sowings climbed to roughly 985,000 ha—a record—yet drought cut the oilseed harvest to the lowest in a decade in 2024/25.

Weather is the third pillar of the week’s narrative. Forecasts now call for frequent wet spells in Ukraine and SW Russia over the next ten days, an important shift after earlier dryness in parts of the Black Sea belt. Additional rainfall should improve soil moisture ahead of winter wheat dormancy, though some Ukrainian acres were seeded after the optimal window and will still need a warm November to develop enough before the first deep freezes. On the operations side, drier breaks this week improved the pace of sunflower and soybean harvesting in Ukraine, but high grain moisture has delayed corn; farmers are either drying grain or waiting for warmer weather or a hard frost to bring moisture down.

Beyond the core Black Sea, adjacent supply basins shape the regional balance. South America remains generally favorable for planting: Brazil’s oscillation between brief dry windows and incoming fronts is allowing rapid soybean seeding, while Argentina’s next fronts will add moisture and support wheat condition and early corn development. Europe, meanwhile, looks wetter into next week, which is positive for winter wheat establishment but may slow corn harvest and some fieldwork. These ex-regional trends matter because a well-supplied Atlantic trade lane and fast-paced Brazilian soy can cap any upside from Black Sea weather scares unless local yield risks escalate.

Within the broader oilseed mix, rapeseed remains a quiet swing factor. Continued acreage stability and higher yields point to a higher 2026/27 Ukrainian rapeseed crop near 3.4 MMT, with farmers having shifted toward oilseeds since 2022 for better economics and logistics. Recent dryness delayed some plantings, but warmer, wetter conditions into late October were expected to improve fieldwork and leave harvested area broadly comparable to last season. For Black Sea crushers and EU buyers, that trajectory offers medium-term relief on soft-seed availability even as sunflower remains weather-sensitive.

Price formation and basis in the Black Sea corridor are now highly path-dependent. If rains materialize and stabilize Russian and Ukrainian winter wheat stands, export programs from the region can stay aggressive into Q4 and early Q1, keeping a lid on EU replacement values. Conversely, any renewed dryness into dormancy, coupled with logistical hiccups or a slower Mississippi recovery that tightens U.S. export pace, could widen Black Sea–EU spreads and lift FOB values. For vegoils, Indonesia’s policy cadence and palm oil pricing still reverberate into soyoil and sunoil spreads; if Romanian and Bulgarian crush margins remain thin and seed scarcity persists, refined-product exports could tighten, giving nearby sunoil premiums some room to breathe even against ample palm.

In summary, the trend in the Black Sea this week is a cautious hand-off from supply anxiety to execution risk. Transit soybeans through Constanța blunt the headline “import” signal, Bulgarian processors lobby to anchor raw seeds domestically, and rain prospects begin to mend soil moisture across key winter wheat areas. The market will calibrate to three watch-items into November: whether the forecasted rains verify across Ukraine and SW Russia to secure stands before dormancy, whether Bulgarian policy coalesces around keeping more seed at home to safeguard crush, and whether Ukraine’s oilseed processors capture more margin domestically, reducing raw-bean transit and reshaping Romania’s port flows. Each of these will feed directly into basis, freight and nearby spreads in the Black Sea complex over the next month.