Page 59 - UKRRptMar19

Russia’s interference with Ukrainian shipping in the Azov is costing Ukraine $350mn, Infrastructure Minister Omelyan says. Faced with delays costing $10-50,000 a day, shippers are shifting to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, shunning Berdyansk and Mariupol, Ukraine’s big Azov ports. Last week, US envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker told reporters the Trump Administration is considering imposing sanctions this spring against Russian ships servicing Russia’s Azov ports. Last week, a EU fact finding mission visited Berdyansk and Mariupol. On Feb. 18, the European Commission is to discuss sanctioning Russia for blocking freedom of shipping in the Azov, a binational sea by treaty.
Russian interference with merchant shipping on the Azov cost Berdyansk port $4.6mn last year , Port Director Alexander Troshchenko told a visiting EU delegation. "In 2018, metal and clay [shipments’ were completely lost - $840,000,” he said. In response, he said the port activated a new grain handling unit and shipped 200,000 tons of grain.
France’s largest container shipping company, CMA CGM Group, plans to invest €20mn to double the container handling capacity of Odesa’s Brooklyn-Kiev Port . In a five-year project, capacity would grow to 500,000 standard 20-foot containers a year – the equivalent of 60% of all containers handled by Ukraine’s Black Sea ports last year. The centre for Transportation Strategies quotes Jan Odin, a financial director for CMA CGM, saying: “Our company believes in the future of Ukraine. We are interested in increasing the freight traffic through the terminal in the port of Odesa and have the intention to invest in this.”
Despite Russian pressure on shippers, Mariupol continues with its modernization plan , building a grain terminal capable of handling 2.5mn tons a year, Port Director Alexander Oleinik writes on Facebook. He says half of the foundation has been laid, four of the 10 silos are rising and a rail link is being built. “I have no doubt that the amount of grain transshipment in the Mariupol port will increase significantly,” he writes of the port, which until last year handled 10% of Ukraine’s steel exports. Last year, overall cargo was down by 10% as the number of ships dwindled in the second half.
Despite Russia’s harassment of merchant ships in the Azov, Asket-Shipping increased its grain silo storage capacity in Berdyansk last year by 42%, to 100,000 tons, reports the centre for Transportation Strategies. Victoria Abreyeva, director of the Berdyansk branch, says of the export-oriented investments: “All our warehouses are equipped with truck weighing complexes and labouratory equipment.” Asket has export warehouses in the ports of Kherson, Mariupol, and Mykolayiv.
● Cars
With EU aid, Hungary is preparing to build a 4-lane expressway to its Záhony crossing with Ukraine , at Chop, Zakarpattia. Mukachevo.net reports that three Hungarian companies are to build the project, an extension of the M4 east-west highway from Budapest. This could cut the Uzhogorod-Budapest drive to three hours. Hungary has expressways to all of its seven neighbors, but Ukraine. Separately, Poland is building a 4-lane expressway from Warsaw through Lublin to Hrebenne, a Polish border town facing Lviv’s Rava Ruska crossing.
Through 2023, €4.5bn in low interest loans have been committed to
59 UKRAINE Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com