Pakistan’s government has cancelled a deal to buy 40,000 tonnes of Ukrainian rapeseed because its Ukrainian partner had failed to deliver the shipment in time, Kiev-based ProAgro consultancy said on Tuesday“The Ukrainian side explains the failure to deliver (the shipment) as being due to snow, which made it impossible (to move rapeseed to a sea port),” ProAgro said in a report.

The consultancy said Ukrainian rapeseed was supposed to be delivered to Pakistan in January 2013 at $637 per tonne C&F.Earlier this month, analyst UkrAgroConsult increased its forecast for rapeseed exports from Ukraine by about five per cent in the 2012/13 season to 1.235 million tonnes due to lower domestic processingPoor weather during the autumn sowing in 2011 and severe frost reduced the 2012 rapeseed harvest by about 15 per cent to 1.203 million tonnes.

Ukraine traditionally exports more than 90 per cent of its rapeseed harvest mostly to European countriesThe consultancy said Ukraine had exported 895,000 tonnes of rapeseed so far this season.