By KYIV. Jan 3 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The introduction of an electronic queue for ships passing to the ports of Odesa, similar to the ports of the Danube, made it possible to optimize and make logistics planning transparent, but it is unable to solve the main reason for the delay of grain carriers – the problem of inspection of ships in the Bosphorus by the Russian side.
According to the website of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority (USPA), the workload of the ports of Odesa is now less than 50%, while 96 ships are waiting in line to load Ukrainian agricultural products, and this "traffic jam" will grow if the daily number of transport inspections is not increased.
"The USPA was fundamentally important to introduce a process that would be transparent and understandable for the market. We did it by analogy with the Danube ports – we founded an electronic queue. But no matter how effective planning tools we introduce, there is a destructive position of Russia in the work of the "grain corridor." It is because of it that when passing control in the Bosphorus, instead of the required 24-30 ships per day (in equal shares for entry and exit), inspection is actually carried out on average, only 3.5 ships for entry and 3 for exit," USPA leader Oleksiy Vostrikov said.
He recalled that last month the queue in the Bosphorus reached more than 150 ships that were waiting for entry into Ukrainian ports for more than 30 days. Then this problem was solved together with the UN and Turkey, but now the situation is repeating.
The USPA stressed that the blocking of the work of the "grain corridor" by the Russian Federation is discussed at daily industry meetings and weekly meetings with agricultural market participants. In addition, Ukraine sent an appeal to its partners in the "grain" initiative – the UN and Turkey – with a request to increase the number of daily inspections of ships.
