Black Sea Grain Initiative: due to actions of Russian delegations some ships await inspection over a month
As part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, 9 ships with 390,000 tons of agricultural products for Africa, Asia and Europe left the ports of Great Odesa [an agglomeration with the centre in the city of Odesa – ed.] in 2 days. Due to the actions of the Russian Federation delegation, some vessels have been awaiting inspection in Turkish waters for more than a month.
This was announced by the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine on Facebook.
Among them are the ALANDA STAR and SSI PRIVILEGE bulkers with 68,000 tons of wheat for Egypt and Indonesia, as well as the EUROCHAMPION tanker with 45,000 tons of oil for India.
"The ports of Great Odesa are loading more than 860,000 tons of agricultural products onto 24 ships. Next is waiting for the inspection of the Joint Coordination Center (JCC).
Today, 95 vessels await inspection in the Bosphorus [Strait], of which 73 are headed west to the ports for loading, 22 are already loaded with Ukrainian agricultural products. Some ships have been waiting in Turkish waters for over a month," the Ministry said.
"This is the result of deliberate actions of the delegation of the Russian Federation in the JCC, the purpose of which is to slow down the process of ship inspections. At first, they reduced the number of inspection groups to three, now they began to extend the time of the inspections themselves.
Representatives of the Russian Federation began to check even indicators that are not provided for by the JCC documents and have nothing to do with the subject of the inspection (for example, whether the ship's units are working well, how much fuel it carries, etc.).
With this algorithm, the inspection of one vessel takes over four hours. This is unproductive and contributes to the increase of the queue. An increase in the queue means a decrease in the volume of export of agricultural products from our ports and millions of losses for cargo owners due to downtime," explained Yurii Vaskov, the Deputy Minister of Hromadas, Territories and Infrastructure Development.
As of 25 December, because of this, inspection group No. 3 had not conducted any inspections.
As a result, only 6 out of 10 planned inspections took place per day. For a stably working "grain corridor" a minimum of 12 inspections per day is needed, the Ministry emphasises.
Currently, 3 ships are moving along the grain corridor with 93,000 tons of agricultural products.
Since 1 August, 594 ships have left the ports of Great Odesa, exporting 15.5 million tons of Ukrainian food to the countries of Asia, Europe and Africa.
Background:
In 11 months of this year, the ports of the Danube region almost tripled the transshipment of goods and increased the export of agricultural products by 42 times.
During Saturday and Sunday of 24-25 December, 7 ships with 182,000 tons of agricultural products left the ports of Great Odesa as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative for the countries of Africa, Asia and Europe.
As part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, on 20 December, 4 ships with 129,000 tons of agricultural products for Africa, Asia and Europe left the ports of Great Odesa.
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