Page 66 - UKRRptFeb19

The ranking of Ukraine’s biggest ports emerges from statistics for 2018 cargo volumes released by the Seaports Administration. The top five are: Yuzhne (Odesa region) – 43mn tons; Mykolayiv - 29mn; Odesa - 21.7mn; Chernomorsk (Odesa region) - 21.5mn; and Mariupol (Donetsk region) - 5.9mn. With Odesa’s volumes down 10% last year, the ‘Pearl of the Black Sea’ – now plagued by corruption allegations – seems fated to fall this year to fourth place.
The Sea of Azov port saw cargo handled by Berdyansk port drop by 24% last year, to 1.8mn tons , reports the centre for Transportation Strategies. Grain dropped by 12% and metals by 43%. Last year, cargo handled by Mariupol, Ukraine’s 5th busiest port, dropped by 10%.
Chornomorsk was Ukraine’s fastest growing Black Sea port last year,
handing 25% more cargo, far above the 2% average for Ukraine’s ports. Opened 50 years ago as a southern satellite of Odesa, Chornomorsk is to overtake Odesa this year, becoming Ukraine’s third busiest port, after Yuzhne and Mykolaviv. Last year, Chornomorsk handled 21.5mn tons of cargo. Odesa Port opened in 1794.
In a bright spot for Odesa, seaport passenger terminal, one of the largest on the Black Sea, returned to life last year. Passenger numbers jumped to 321,647 last year, from 1,750 in 2017. Overall, Ukraine’s boat passenger traffic jumped by 170% last year to 515,593. Domestic traffic – largely on the Dnipro and along the Black Sea coast – tripled to 464,503. Foreign traffic increased by 9%, to 51,090. Sixty of all boat passengers used Odesa port. With river traffic returning to fashion, the volume of cargo moving on the Dnipro increased by 22% y/y, to 10mn tons in 2018.
Despite a 20% cut in port dues one year ago, Ukraine’s seaports handled only 1.8% more cargo last year than in 2017 , the Infrastructure Ministry reports. Reaffirming Ukraine’s ports as export oriented, the Black Sea and Azov ports handled four times as much exports – 99mn tons – as imports – 24mn tons. One high growth area was container handling, up 11% y/y, to 11mn tons. Taking some pressure off roads and rails, ship journeys on the Dnipro River were up 11%, moving 10mn tons.
At Mariupol port, shipping volumes fell last year to 5.3mn tons, or 10% below 2017 levels. With the 2014 loss of most production from the Donbas, this 22-berth port operated last year at 28% of capacity. A second blow came in spring 2018 with Russia’s opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge. Built with a 35-meter high central arch -- half the height of the Suez Canal Bridge -- the bridge is too low for 30% of the cargo ships that historically served Mariupol.
The port administration plans $18.5mn in capital investment for Mariupol port, largely for dredging. An international ProZorro tender closes for $32mn of dredging work on Ukraine’s two Azov ports in January, Donetsk region’s Mariupol and, 85 km to the west, Zaporizhia region’s Berdyansk. Last year, three tenders for this dredging failed to draw the minimum of two applicants, apparently due to company fears that Russia could impound dredging vessels in the Kerch.
Grain loading is taking place at Ukraine’s two ports on the Sea of Azov,
reports Maxim Martynyuk, first deputy minister of Agrarian Policy and Food.
66 UKRAINE Country Report February 2019 www.intellinews.com