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SSY’s data showed that flows of grain into the region were strong before the war, with 38.6 million tonnes of agricultural imports into the area in 2025.
Iran was the principal importer, taking 15.2 million tonnes of this total, followed by Saudi Arabia with 7 million tonnes, Iraq with 5.8 million tonnes and the United Arab Emirates with 4.8 million tonnes.
“Grain imports typically go to ports within the Strait of Hormuz, at 89% of seaborne imports in 2025,” Cara Hatton, senior dry bulk analyst at SSY, told Fastmarkets.
“Since the outbreak of the US/Israel-Iran war at the end of February and the subsequent blockage of the Strait, shipments into the region have fallen dramatically,” she added. “In March and April combined, the two months since the de facto closure, grain imports into the Strait dropped by 75% year-on-year to 3.4 million tonnes.”
But this fall was partly compensated by rising imports to other locations in the Middle East.
Shipments to regional ports outside the Strait of Hormuz were up by 64% to 1.7 million tonnes in the same period, according to SSY’s data.
Notably, shipments to Sohar in Oman tripled year-on-year to 500,000 tonnes in March and April 2026.
Shipments to Chah Bahar port in Iran, close to that country’s eastern border with Pakistan, went to 500,000 tonnes in March and April this year from a single Panamax shipment (roughly 60,000-80,000 tonnes) in the same months of 2025, according to SSY.
The shipbroker said that turnaround times for grain cargoes had increased at these ports as a result, with Sohar having already seen its average time for grain discharging doubling to 12 days in the year before the war.
It was still unclear how regional logistics could adapt to process and transport these flows from the new arrival ports. But a movement of flows was perhaps inevitable, given the region’s high dependence on imports to feed its people.
Corn imports equalled 62% of domestic consumption in the region in 2024-25, according to USDA data quoted by SSY. The equivalent figures for barley imports were 65% and 16% for wheat imports.
Brazilian goods have been particularly hit by disruption because it was a major pre-war exporter to this region.
Iran was the second-largest importer of Brazilian agricultural products, with 6% of the total share in 2025, according to the SSY data.
From January to April, Brazil exported 1.46 million tonnes of corn to Iran, compared with 2.14 million tonnes in the same period last year, Brazilian customs data seen by Fastmarkets showed.
In February, when the war began, Iran was the fifth biggest importer of Brazilian corn with 160,366 tonnes, while in the same month of 2025 it was the main importer, with 617,061 tonnes.
The Brazilian Association of Corn and Sorghum Producers (Abramilho) said in March that 80% of corn purchased by Iran originated in Brazil.
Fastmarkets also reported several washouts of Brazilian soymeal cargoes to Iran in the opening weeks of the war.
Interestingly, however, the SSY data showed that Brazilian cargoes were still flowing into Iran despite a supposed US blockade of the Strait.
In the three weeks from the beginning of the blockade on April 13, SSY tracked an average of five grain arrivals per week to Iran through the strait, which it said were predominantly Brazilian cargoes.
These levels compared with an average of eight grain arrivals per week through the strait pre-war.
Brazilian customs data showed that Brazil exported 135,764 tonnes of corn to Iran in March and April, versus 448,314 tonnes a year earlier.
In March, immediately following the start of the war, Brazil exported only 1,096 tonnes of corn to Iran.
But by April, Iran was Brazil’s leading corn importer again, with 134,668 tonnes purchased compared with 143,509 tonnes in April 2025.
The recovery in Brazilian exports captured by the customs data underlined that, while displaced by the war, the grain trade into Iran has not been ended by the blockade or the war.
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