As of 8:00 p.m. on July 12, 2022, 16 ships that will transport Ukrainian agricultural products to foreign markets have already passed through the channel of the Bystre estuary of the Danube - Black Sea channel and were waiting to be loaded with Ukrainian grain.
More than 90 vessels are waiting for their turn to enter Ukrainian ports at the Sulina Canal raid. As of the evening of July 12, a total of 135 vessels were on the raid of the Romanian Sulina channel.
"Over the past 4 days, 16 ships have already passed through the Bystre estuary. We plan to maintain this pace. The restoration of shipping through this channel is an important step, which will also allow unloading of the Sulina Canal raid and speed up the export of grain.
Unfortunately, at the moment, its capacity and the organization of work make it possible to receive only 4 ships, when at least 8 ships per day are necessary", - noted the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Yuriy Vaskov.
"We are negotiating with Romanian colleagues and representatives of the European Commission the possibility the increase in the number of crossings through the Sulina channel. Under these conditions and the availability of a route through the estyary of Bystre, we expect that within a week the congestion of ships on the raid will be eliminated and we will be able to increase the monthly export of grain by 500,000 tons" , - Vaskov added.
At the same time, MIU noted once again that even with the optimization of logistics through the Danube ports, their capacity will still be not enough to fully replace blocked Ukrainian sea ports. For comparison, they provide information that in June, it was possible to export approximately 2.5 million tons of products through the available logistics routes, while the monthly need to export such products is 8 million tons.
