Romanian port races against clock to move Ukrainian grain to global markets

Comvex SA

13/05/2022 14:32

By Luiza Ilie
    CONSTANTA, Romania, May 13 (Reuters) - Pressed into
emergency service by the blockade of Ukraine's  seaports by
Russian invaders, neighbouring Romania is racing against time to
move Ukrainian grain to global markets before the next harvest
triggers bottlenecks.     
    Ukraine, the world's fourth largest grain exporter, has been
forced by Russia's invasion to re-route shipments by train via
its western border into neighbouring Poland, Slovakia and
Romania or on barges through its small Danube river ports.
    But Ukraine needs to move 20 million tonnes of grains before
the new harvest in less than three months to avoid bottlenecks
and forestall a global food crisis.  L5N2X45SN 
    European Transport Commissioner Adina Valean has called the
challenge "gigantesque" and said on Thursday the European
Commission will work with EU governments to put in place
effective new transport routes for Ukrainian grain.
    The scale of the challenge comes into focus in Romania's
flagship Black Sea port Constanta, where only about 1% of the EU
target, or roughly 240,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain has so far
passed through, its manager Florin Goidea told Reuters.
    Constanta port operator Comvex  CMVX.BX  has handled roughly
180,000 tonnes of that amount on four ships, including the
Nordic bc Munich freighter that finished loading 33,000 tonnes
of maize bound for Egypt earlier this week, with the grain
arriving by rail, barge and truck.
    "We are in a position to handle these goods through great
effort," Comvex President Viorel Panait told Reuters. "But these
efforts are insufficient to make up transit routes overnight for
such important volumes. More equipment is clearly needed."
    Last year, Constanta's port shipped a record high 25.2
million tonnes of grain from Romania and its landlocked
neighbours Serbia, Hungary and Austria. 
    Panait estimated that operators, with promised fresh
investment in infrastructure, could handle another 20% on top of
last year's volumes, or roughly 5 million tonnes.
    He said government- or EU-backed support could help
operators invest in costly equipment needed to fully handle
Ukrainian cargo, like cranes, train loading equipment and gear
for raw materials which the port does not usually handle. 
    Comvex operates Europe's fastest-loading grain terminal,
which can process up to 70,000 tonnes per day. 
    Earlier this week, it was unloading 10 train wagons per
hour. In June, it will add a second unloading line for barges
which will double its barge capacity, Panait said. 
    Comvex has also shipped roughly 160,000 tonnes of Ukrainian
iron ore over the last month through its mineral handling
terminal. In May it signed a separate contract with a Ukrainian
producer to ship up to 180,000 tonnes of iron ore per month. 
    
    INFRASTRUCTURAL CHALLENGE
    Problems with Constanta port's connecting infrastructure
have posed one of the main challenges to taking on Ukrainian
grain. At the start of the year, around 700 rusty wagons were
blocking the tracks, and rail rehabilitation works were stalled.
    Since then, Romania's state-owned rail freight company has
removed around half of the de-commissioned wagons. 
    In June, it will start rehabilitating 35 rail lines in the
port, a 200-million-lei ($42.08 million) investment, the
transport minister said. It is also working on rehabilitating
both wide and regular gauge railroads connecting Ukrainian
territory with Romanian sea and Danube river ports.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N2WO1BX
    Constanta will use EU funds for a dredging project to
improve berth depth and plans to expand operating capacity by
adding 17 berths in the longer term. Port operations were up
10-11% so far this year, Goidea said. 
    Capacity would be stretched from July with the arrival of
new crops from Constanta port's regular clients.     
    "I do not see a problem at the moment operating grains,"
Goidea said. "Without question it will get crowded (after the
new harvest) but this is the situation, we must find solutions.
We will do the best we can."

 (Reporting by Luiza Ilie, Editing by Mark Heinrich)
 ((luiza.ilie@thomsonreuters.com; +4021 527 0312; https://www.reuters.com/journalists/luiza-ilie))