Romania to help Ukraine boost Black Sea grain exports in response to Russian blockade

Romania agreed to create an anchorage for Ukrainian grain in the port of Constanta. It will take several months, it will appear in March 2024, said Dmytro Moskalenko, the CEO of the state-owned Ukrainian Danube Shipping Conpany.

"We discussed the organization of moorings with Romanian colleagues back in September. In January-February, the Romanian side promises to hold a tender and develop a regulatory framework in order to put the mooring into operation in March," Moskalenko said in a post on Facebook.

Thanks to the opening of the Greater Odesa seaports, the flow of agricultural products through the Danube has somewhat decreased, but at any moment, the river can turn from the backup direction into the main one again, the top manager noted.

An online queue for barge processing in Constanta was also agreed with Romania, which should add greater predictability to the work.

"Idle barges in Constanta are additional costs for cargo owners and a catastrophic loss of fleet utilization efficiency," Moskalenko explained.

At the beginning of December, a year after the agreement, Romania switched the Sulina canal on the Danube to 24-hour operation. This will significantly increase its throughput.

The harvest in Ukraine in 2023 turned out to be even better than expected. The yield record was observed for almost all crops.