The Maritime Economist Magazine Spring 2015 | Page 37

THEMARITIME Economist

voice of young generation

According to the experts and business representatives
from Ukrainian ports, the grain terminals on the
continental part of Ukraine have enough capacity
in place to welcome the rerouted grain flows
previously handled in Crimean ports. The main
terminals are located in the Great Odessa region
(ports of Odessa, Yuzhnyi and Illichevsk). The total
terminal capacity amounts to 50 mln tons per year
with a draft of 18-20 meters.
There are several Crimean ports handling sand and
cement: Sevastopol Fishery port, Yevpatoriya, Yalta
and Kerch. There might occur complications with the
export of construction materials (mainly sand) with
a Crimean origin at the local company Suesta which
operates via its private port in Kamyshovaya bay in
Sevastopol Fishery port (export per year 800,000
tons). In the surroundings of Kerch port there is a
private cement factory owned by Altkom said to be
owned by Aleksandr Tyslenko. Moreover, this factory
has a dedicated deepsea terminal for handling 4
million tons of cement per year. Cement is not
officially recorded in the statistics of Kerch port. So,
when it comes to the export of cement and sand the
ports may still remain at the same level because of
the locational proximity and transport costs, though
the enterprises owned by Ukrainian businessmen
are expected to be affected. Note that people having
businesses in Crimea cannot be citizens of Ukraine,
except if they are Crimeans. Recently the Ukrainian
parliament accepted a law on “the rights and
freedoms of citizens in the temporarily occupied
territory of Ukraine”.
The only port that received considerable import
cargoes was Yevpatoriya. It mainly concerns roro
cargoes (about 33,800 cars were handled in 2013).
Apparently these cars will not enter via Crimea
anymore, because of the isolated and limited

consumer market and because of the recent intention
of the local government to stop all cargo operations in
Yevpatoriya port.
Russian cargo transiting at Ukrainian ports?

Russia remains an important country for the Ukrainian
port system. Russian cargo (export) through Ukrainian
ports amounted to 27 mln tons in 2013 or about
18% of total Ukrainian port traffic. This figure includes
11 million tons of Russian coal and ore (about 25%
of total coal and ore traffic in Ukrainian ports). The
port of llichevsk handles almost all ferro-volumes with
a Russian origin (1.8 mln tons). Most other Russian
cargo passes via the Great Odessa ports. The
container flows transiting to/from Russia and handled
by Ukrainian ports are very small mainly because of
the Customs bureaucracy in Ukraine.
Since many years, Russia has developed plans to build
a new Greenfield port, i.e. Taman, in the eastern
part of the Black Sea. The port should be operational
in 2020. Given the recent Ukrainian crisis, it now
remains unclear whether Russia will go ahead
with the plan to build Taman Port or, alternatively,
might opt for a further development of the port of
Sevastopol in Crimea. Recently the economic
advisor of the President of Russian Federation
informed that they are currently reassessing the
infrastructure investments for this year (USD$ 3 bln
or RUB100 bln). These investments were initially
planned for the Taman port construction and the
bridge construction over the Lena River. A decision
on the infrastructure investments will be taken soon.
In our view, the large Taman project seems to be
more important for the Russian Federation. The
port is planned to have a draft allowing vessels of up
to 150,000 DWT, a total capacity of 50 mln tons in
Phase 1 (ultimate capacity is about 100 mln tons),
facilities for dry bulk, general cargo and containers, no
weather delays (unlike Novorosiysk) and rail and road
connections (unlike Novorosiysk).

ME Mag

shipping activities are affected by the political
agreements between Ukraine and Russia.

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