The volume of exports from Ukrainian ports decreased by 3 million tons every month

Due to russia’s sabotage of the “grain corridor”, the world lacks millions of tons of food every month.

During the operation of the Black Sea Initiative, Ukraine exported 17.8 million tons of agricultural products on 659 vessels from the ports of Great Odesa. In total, grain was sent to 40 countries around the world, the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine reports on Facebook.

Under the condition of the full functioning of the “grain” corridor, the volume of Ukrainian exports to world markets should have amounted to 25-29 million tons. So, since October, Ukrainian ports have been forced to work at half capacity. The monthly export volume decreased by 3 million tons.

Thus, targeted sabotage by the russian side of vessel inspections in the Bosphorus leads to a queue of more than 100 vessels.

“First of all, as soon as the volume of exports began to grow, the russian side reduced the number of inspection teams from 5 to 3 without any explanation. Secondly, they are artificially increasing the time for conducting the inspections themselves by checking the performance indicators of the vessels, which are not regulated by the SCC documents and have nothing to do with the Grain Agreement,” the Ministry noted.

Currently, there are 5-7 inspections per day, with the minimum required 16-18. There are rare cases when russians simply refuse to work for fictitious reasons, when all other parties in the SCC confirm the conditions for continuing the inspection.

“The problem is solved by increasing inspection groups and the number of inspections per day. We have repeatedly appealed to our partners under the agreement and they are ready for this. In November, when more than 200 ships were expected in the Bosphorus, the UN and Turkey independently conducted 86 inspections in two days and proved that this is quite real,” explained the representative of Ukraine at the SCC, Ruslan Sahautdinov.

As of January 18, 121 ships are awaiting inspection by the SCC in the Bosphorus (28 with agricultural products on board, another 93 ships are going to ports for loading). The average waiting time is from 2 to 5 weeks, which also leads to millions of losses for cargo owners.

This state of affairs is reflected in export volumes. Thus, in November, 47% less agricultural products were sent from the ports of Odesa than in October. If almost 2 million tons of agricultural products were under-exported in October, then in November and December it was already 3 million tons per month. Unfortunately, this trend continues to this day.