A vessel carrying Ukrainian grain has left the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk this morning (Friday, September 22), Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov has said.
The Aroyat had entered the port using a “temporary corridor for civil shipping”, Minister Kubrakov said, loading 17,600t of Ukrainian wheat for Egypt.
The vessel was the second to enter the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk via the corridor, following the Resilient Africa which carried 3,000t of wheat for Asia earlier this week, he said.
Black Sea
Meanwhile, three new cargo vessels are on the way to enter both the Chornomorsk and Pivdenij ports for export of 127,000t of agro-products and iron ores for China, Egypt and Spain.
Last month the first vessel has left the Ukrainian port of Odesa since the end of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, moving along the temporary corridor to and from Black Sea ports.
Following Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal, the country again blocked the Black Sea corridor and it was unclear whether it would respect the temporary corridor for civilian vessels.
While Ukraine said the corridor would be primarily used to evacuate ships that were in its ports since the invasion, the Aroyat is the first big ship carrying grain since the grain deal ended.
Ukrainian grain
A ban on imports of Ukrainian grain into Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to ease logistical bottlenecks in these countries by the European Commission expired last week.
Market distortions are “no longer perceived” in the five states bordering Ukraine, the commission said. However, grain exports continued via road and rail through Poland and Romania.
So far, 44.4 million tonnes of grain have left Ukraine via these Solidarity Lanes. Since the end of the grain deal in July, exports via these lanes rose from 3.2 million tonnes to 4 million tonnes in August.
Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, Mykola Solskyi recently discussed the exports of Ukrainian grain with his counterparts in Romania, Slovakia and Poland.
It is understood that Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, against the decision by the commission, currently continue to prohibit the import of Ukrainian agricultural goods.
Ukraine said it will, according to its action plan, agree with the European Commission and the importing countries on the necessary list and volume of agricultural products from four crops.
Only after that, the ministry issues permits to Ukrainian enterprises to export corn, rapeseed, sunflower and wheat to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania or Slovakia, according to Minister Solskyi.