The largest grain ship is already on the way to Africa
The beginning of fall season was marked not only by the fruits of labour of a season that was not easy for anybody, but also by a prominent role of Lithuania in the global grain market, because an impressive size ship, reminding a stadium, full of Lithuanian grain sailed from Klaipėda port.
On the 4th of September the loading of so far the biggest grain ship of “Agrochema” during this season was completed in Klaipėda port. 55 thousand tons of carefully selected and quality-compliant Lithuanian grain bought up by the company sailed for the Republic of South Africa. In accordance with the contract concluded with the buyer the entire cargo must be of the same quality, i.e. have not less than 12.5 percent of proteins.
“If during the previous years such pretty strict request of the buyer would have not caused any issues, this year it posed a certain challenge, since the quality of the grain from different farms varies significantly as the weights of the measure differ, the number of falls is also unstable. Samples were taken while loading for representation the quality of 2 500 tons and they were not allowed to drop below the set margin. In case of failure to comply, we would have had to unload certain part of the cargo and replace it with grain in compliance with the quality requirements,” explained the peculiarities of this loading the Head of Grain Export of the company Andrius Gritėnas.
Today we can already rejoice that this big ship was successfully loaded with Lithuanian wheat of the requested quality and sailed for Cape Town without any interference, the shores of which the ship is expected to reach on the 28th of September.
This time the Lithuanian grain sailed on a ship of impressive size that was manufactured in 2025, which is only on the fifth trip to the capital of the Republic of South Africa. The length of this ship is 199 meters, which equals almost two football stadiums, whereas the width is 32 meters. The freeboard of the ship before loading amounted to 14 meters above water, i.e. almost the height of a 5-storey house. The ship has 5 holds for the cargo, the depth of which also varies from 14 to 16 meters, their total volume is approximately 80 thousand m3, which equals almost 30 Olympic swimming pools.
