Romanian route for Ukrainian grain under increasing pressure

The closure of the Black Sea corridor for Ukraine's grains and the more recent bombing of Ukraine's Danube ports put increasing pressure on Romania's grain route: the land transportation (road and railway) and Constanta Port.

Moldova, which harvested a wheat crop twice as large as last year (1.2mn tonnes) and expects sunflower harvesting, faces problems as well, although its exports are comparatively smaller. Its only port on the Danube, Giurgiulesti, is built on Ukrainian land under an arrangement with its neighbour and is located close to Reni port, already under Russian bombing.

"Moldavskie Vedomosti," quoted by G4media, writes that large traffic jams are forming at checkpoints in the south of Moldova, near Giurgiulesti.

The port of Constanta braces for more Ukrainian grain, AFP reports, spotting investments by port operators. "We are ready for a larger quantity of Ukrainian grain," said Dan Dolghin, a director at Comvex, one of the companies at Constanta that receive grain from trains, barges and trucks to load them onto ships. Dolghin points to a EUR 3mn investment his company made last summer to speed up its barge unloading capacity.

But the investments might fall short of the necessary. All in all, according to our estimates, Romania should transfer 27mn tonnes of grain and agri-products from Ukraine in the coming marketing year, up from 18mn tonnes in the previous year.

Constanta Port's nameplate capacity is 25mn tonnes per year. However, the port might not be the bottleneck after the Russians signaled intentions to bomb Ukraine's Danube ports where the barges were loaded for Constanta. Most of the merchandise might have to be sent to Constanta, under the new circumstances, by road or railway.

Romania has launched projects to strengthen the land transport connectivity with Ukraine, but it's not clear whether the capacity increased dramatically.

(Photo: Denys Kovtun/ Dreamstime)