Grain initiative: rate of ship exits from ports remains critically low
As part of the Grain Initiative, 18 vessels exported 664,000 tonnes of food from the ports of Great Odesa during the week, which is a third less than the export volume for the week before last. The rate of ship exits from ports remains critically low.
Ministry of the infrastructure of Ukraine reports this on Facebook.
60,000 tonnes of wheat were sent to Kenya, 56,000 more to Bangladesh, and 60,000 tonnes of Ukrainian oil were shipped to India.
"The rate of ship exits from ports remains critically low, 2.5 vessels per day. This is an indicator that was at the beginning of the Grain Initiative when export volumes were insignificant. At the same time, the number of vessels that pass inspection in the Bosporus and receive permission to move for loading to Ukrainian ports also does not exceed 3 vessels per day," the ministry stressed.
It is emphasised that in the Bosporus, the Russian side in the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) continues to block the implementation of the initiative and artificially increase the queue of ships.
As of 30 January, 117 vessels are expected to inspect in the territorial waters of Turkey (92 are at ports for loading, 25 are already loaded with agricultural products). Over the past week, only 20 inspections were carried out, with at least 84 required, the Ministry of Internal Affairs noted.
Registration of vessels for participation in the initiative is also slowed down: out of more than 80 declared vessels, Russians register an average of only 2-3 vessels daily, without any explanations.
"These factors slow down the implementation of the Grain initiative: we see a decrease in export volumes by almost 30% compared to the previous month, which means that the world does not receive agricultural products in the required volume.
Many countries receive it with huge time delays due to the downtime of ships in the Bosporus. We are waiting for the reaction of our partners in the Grain agreement, Turkey and the UN," the ministry said in its statement.
Currently, 21 vessels are being processed in the ports of Great Odessa. Tgese are loaded with almost 1,000,000 tonnes of Ukrainian agricultural products. Only 3 vessels move along the "grain corridor" for loading.
"Since 1 August, 687 vessels have left the ports of Great Odesa [Pivdennyi, Illichivsk and Zaliznyi Port – ed.], which exported 18.9 million tonnes of Ukrainian food to Asia, Europe and Africa. With the stable functioning of the grain corridor, this figure should be more than 28 million tons," the Ministry of internal affairs reports.
Note:
During January, the number of ship exits from Ukrainian ports remained at the level of 2.7, which is, on average, it was 2-3 ships per day – this is one of the lowest rates for all the months of the grain initiative's existence.
At the entrance and exit to the Black Sea ports of Ukraine, a queue of 120 vessels appeared, and the inspection time of vessels increased to 10-15 days due to an insufficient number of inspectors.
Journalists fight on their own frontline. Support Ukrainska Pravda or become our patron!
