Danube ports increased their cargo handling by 3.7 times in June

In June 2022, Ukrainian ports on the Danube increased transshipment of cargo by 3.7 times compared to March – to 1.4 million tons. Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov reported about it.

“In order to prevent world hunger and to enable our farmers to export their products, we partially reoriented logistics to river ports. The results of this work are already obvious – cargo processing of all groups of goods in the Danube ports has increased by 3.7 times since March – up to 1.4 million tons in June. At the same time, we are developing auxiliary railway infrastructure to increase the export potential of ports,” said the head of the Ministry of Infrastructure.

Also, to attract European investments in the development of Danube ports, the Ministry of Infrastructure is working with the EU to include the Ukrainian part of the Danube in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).

According to Oleksandr Kubrakov, thanks to the liberation of Zmiiny Island by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Bystre estuary of the Danube-Black Sea waterway was opened for the entry and exit of ships transporting agricultural products.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in recent years the share of Danube ports in joint transshipment in Ukraine was at the level of 2.5-4.2%. Ministry of Infrastructure is planning to increase the throughput capacity of Ukrainian ports on the Danube by 1.7 times – up to 25 million tons per year. But even with maximum efforts, the Danube ports will not be able to extract Ukrainian exports – the country’s Black Sea ports will need to be completely unblocked.

The Ministry of Infrastructure also is planning dredging of the path through the estuary of the Bystre, since now vessels with a draft of no more than 3.9 m can pass through the channel. This will affect the carrying capacity of vessels. Today they load 1.5-2 thousand tons, and will be able to – up to 5 thousand tons .