Two Ukrainian agricultural storage facilities tied to commodity trading giants Glencore and Bunge have been attacked by missiles.
Citing officials at Bunge and Viterra, Agence France Presse (AFP) and French newspaper Le Monde said the attacks took place at the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv.
One facility at Everi port, which is used to store and load vegetable oil, was the target of a missile attack that left two silos on fire and a third damaged, AFP said, citing a spokesman of Viterra, which is owned by Glencore, CPP Investments and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation.
One person was slightly injured, according to the reports.
The Everi port was built in 2010 with a capacity to store 160,000 tonnes of vegetable oil and load up to 1.5m tonnes per year for export.
Bunge also confirmed that one of its facilities had been hit.
A company spokesman, quoted by AFP, said the facilities were impacted “by the latest Russian attacks in the region”. The exact extent of the damage, however, is not known and there were no injuries.
Bunge’s facility in Mykolaiv has been shut since 24 February when Russia attacked Ukraine. It includes a storage and loading terminal and a vegetable oil production unit.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of grains and vegetable oil.
The country’s Black Sea ports have been blocked since the Russian invasion, stoking fears of worldwide food shortages, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
Negotiations to reopen the ports and unblock the ships trapped in them have been unsuccessful, so far.
((This article was amended to clarify the relationship between Viterra and Glencore))
