Ukraine can increase transshipment of grain on the Danube to 3 million tons

Currently, Ukraine ships 2 million tons of agricultural products every month through the Danube ports.

Ukraine is negotiating with the European Commission and Romania on improving the operation of the ports of the Danube cluster. The main topic of the negotiations is increasing the throughput of the ports. This was announced by the president of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) Mykola Gorbachev.

“I am very worried that the port of Constanta will not be able to digest such a large volume of grain from Ukraine. Its maximum design capacity is 30 million tons per year, but this is subject to good weather 365 days a year. Their record was set last year — 25 million tons of grain and oilseeds. But this is already insignificant for Ukraine, which is going to export about 40-50 million tons of grain and oilseeds,” comments Gorbachev.

Thus, at a meeting with the European Commission, the Minister of Transport of Romania confirmed the construction of an additional anchorage on the territory of the port of Constanţa, which will be able to load 3 Handysize and 2 “Panamax” class vessels. The parking lot should be operational from the middle of August. At the same time, the organization of the mooring is actually free and does not require any investment, except for permit documents.

“The plans also include anchorages in Romanian territorial waters at the exit from Sulina. In this way, we would reduce the distance from our ports to the loading of the ship, and this would further speed up the turnover of barges and terminals. We could use not only the Ukrainian terminals, but also the terminals of Romania (Galatz) or Moldova (Giurgiulesti). In the best case, the construction of these anchorages will take three months,” explained the head of UGA.

Also, during the negotiations, the European Commission allocated funds for navigation equipment that will improve and speed up navigation along Sulina. At the same time, Ukraine agrees to increase the number of pilots from the Romanian side. Another 30 pilots are expected to join the workforce in August. Thanks to this, the Sulyn channel will be able to work around the clock.

It is expected that the listed measures will help increase the rate of shipments of Ukrainian grain across the Danube to 3 million tons already in August-September.

It is worth noting that Ukraine currently ships about 2 million tons of grain and oilseeds per month via the Danube. The record figure recorded in May was only 2.2 million tons.