The Black Sea region accounts for only 2.5 percent of global seaborne trade. While its significance is quite limited on a global scale (eg. seaborne trade in the North Sea region accounts for 17 percent of the world total), the Black Sea is an important area of development due to its geographical size and resource base. Ukraine and Russia are two major powers in the Black Sea port sector. This contribution zooms in on port activity in Ukraine with a specific focus on dry bulk cargo. We discuss the current status of and future outlook for the major deep-sea ports of Odessa, Ilyichevsk, Yuzhnyi and Nikolaev which together represent about 60 percent of dry bulk traffic in the Ukrainian port system
Handling capacity of Ukrainian dry bulk facilities
Ukrainian ports mainly focus on the handling of dry bulk (agri-bulk, mining and metallurgic cargoes and chemicals), general cargo (containers and heavy industry goods) and liquid bulk. Dry cargo facilities (including dry bulk and general cargoes, but excluding grain and containers) in Ukrainian ports represent 133 million tonnes or 51 percent of the total capacity of the port system. The grain capacity represents another 15 percent of total ports’ capacities or about 38 million tonnes per year. The utilisation rate of the cargo handling facilities for dry bulk cargo in Ukrainian ports reached 92 percent in 2011. For grain facilities it amounted to 47 percent.
The hinterland of Ukrainian ports
Ukrainian ports not only serve the local economy, but also have a …
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