Romanian Port Struggles To Handle Flow Of Ukrainian Grain

With Ukraine's seaports blocked or controlled by Russian forces, neighboring Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta has emerged as a key route for the war-torn country's grain exports as the international food crisis worsens, Vadin Ghirda reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: The Port of Constanta

It is Romania's largest port and home to Europe's fastest-loading grain terminal. Since the Feb. 24 invasion, it has processed about a million tons of grain from Ukraine, one of the world's largest exporters of wheat and corn.

However, port operators believe that without coordinated European Union (EU) backing and investment, maintaining, let alone increasing, the volume they handle may soon become impossible.

“If we want to keep helping Ukrainian farmers, we need help to increase our handling capacities,” said Dan Dolghin, director of cereal operations at the Black Sea port's primary Comvex operator. “No single operator can invest in infrastructure that will become redundant once the war ends,” he continued. Comvex has the capacity to process up to 72,000 tons of cereals per day.

This, together with Constanta's proximity to Ukraine by land and the Suez Canal by water, makes it the best current route for Ukrainian agricultural exports. Other options include shipping goods by truck and rail across Ukraine's western border into Poland and its Baltic Sea ports.

Efforts to break the Russian embargo have failed, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) predicts that the Ukraine war may cause a food crisis or worse levels of famine for up to 181 million people in 41 countries this year.

Comvex built a new unloading facility just days after the Russian invasion, anticipating that the neighboring country would have to reroute its agricultural shipments. Over the last four months, the port has shipped about a million tons of Ukrainian grain, the majority of which arrived by barge down the Danube River.

However, with 20 times that amount still banned in Ukraine and the summer harvest season quickly approaching in Romania and other countries that use Constanta for exports, Dolghin believes the rate of Ukrainian grain shipping via his port will drop.

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