The head of the port’s business association said that Romania’s Constanta port could handle extra cargoes from Ukraine after Russia’s withdrawal led to the collapse of the Black Sea shipment deal. He added operators are seeking to increase capacity.
The Kremlin’s decision to pull out of the Black Sea agreement shocked grain traders who, though doubtful that the July deal would last indefinitely, had expected it to endure until next spring. The move could force Ukrainian farmers to slash crop yields and raise global food prices, hitting the world’s poorest nations hardest.
Grain brokers expect Ukraine to continue shipping using a variety of routes. Turkey, which brokered the deal with Ukraine and the United Nations, expects one ship to leave for export each day as long as the agreement holds. But those ships will be much slower than the bulkers that used to leave Odesa and other Black Sea ports under the deal. The cost of the trip will be higher, too. For example, the insurance premium for a Handysize ship sailing from western Ukraine to Suez via Turkey will add up to more than $1 million, according to a broker.
As the war with Russia has disrupted Ukraine’s shipments to the global markets, many farmers are shifting their harvest to Danube river ports, such as Reni and Izmail, where access to Ukraine has remained unrestricted. These routes, backed by the European Union as “solidarity lanes,” must be improved to work well enough to replace the Black Sea deal.
Another route, which combines road and rail transit through EU countries Poland and Romania, remains in place. But it can be slowed by border crossing delays and the need for a connected digital system for recording flows. The Romanian government wants to invest further in it. Still, the pace will be slow, and the logistics are complicated because grains have to be kept separate from each other for origin certification.
Romania’s Constanta port handles most of the country’s grain exports and has a storage capacity of around 2 million tonnes. It can only process about half that much in a typical month because of the logistical challenges. But the head of the port’s business association is confident it will be able to pick up volumes in August when traffic will spike because of summer vacations. He also hopes to help resolve the dispute with Russia by urging the two sides to hold talks. He has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit.
