During January-May 2019, the sea ports of Ukraine handled almost 385 thousand TEU, up 18.4% year-on-year.
By way of comparison, Russia’s largest Black Sea port of Novorossiysk during the same period handled some 337.5 thousand TEU, down 7 year-on-year.
According to the Ukrainian Sea Ports Administration, export container traffic via the Ukrainian sea ports made 181.5thousand TEU, up 15.7% year-on-year. Import was up 18.8% to 187.5 thousand TEU. Transit surged by 54.6% up to 15.9 thousand TEU. Cabortage was non-existent.
Odessa handled 249.9 thousand TEU during January-May 2019, up 6.1% year-on-year.
Container traffic via Pivdenniy (formerly, Yuzhny) surged 2.3-fold up to 84 thousand tons.
Chernomorsk (formerly known as Ilyichevsk) handled 50.9 thousand TEU, down 1.9% year-on-year.
Olvia Specialized Sea Port (formerly, Oktyabrsk) handled just 65 TEU, down 76.9% year-on-year.
According to the new Ukrainian Sea Port Development Strategy, by 2038 container handling via the country’s sea ports is expected to more than double up to almost 2 mn TEU.
The positive trend during the recent three years is supportive of this forecast, and there is a potential for grain containerization, this commodity making the bulk of Ukraine’s export. However, the political instability and insufficient level of rail infrastructure could pose a problem, according to the experts speaking at the Ukrainian Ports Forum 2019.