Danube Shipping Company completes return of its three-vessel fleet previously under lease

The state-owned Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company has returned the last of its three vessels from lease, the bulk carrier Izmail, announced the company's CEO Dmytro Moskalenko.

In the early 1990s, six universal dry cargo vessels of the "river-sea" class were built for UDSC in Portugal. Three of them are in a non-working state and are in the lay-up, and it is impossible to restore them, Moskalenko wrote on Facebook.

Three more ships were transferred by the previous management of the UDSC to bareboat charter, now they have been returned: the ships Vylkove and Reni – earlier, and Izmail – more recently.

"According to the terms of the contract, the fleet must be returned in a satisfactory technical condition. As a matter of fact, all the returned ships require significant repairs. This year, we carried out a huge overhaul of the first returned vessel – Vylkove. Almost everything had to be repaired or replaced on it. The main engine, hull, anchoring and mooring equipment, ballast-draining system and many other units, mechanisms, systems. Significant investments have been made, but we have an almost new bulk carrier," Moskalenko wrote.

He said that the company is going to demand compensation for the money spent on repairs from the former tenant.

Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company is one of the largest shipping companies both in Ukraine and in the Danube region. It operates on the 2,400 km stretch of the Danube, from the mouth of the river to the port of Kelheim, Germany. The UDSC fleet includes 75 self-propelled vessels and 245 units of the non-self-propelled fleet.

On May 2, 2023, the company announced that it was going to engage in sea transportation. For this, three sea vessels are being returned from the lease.