Infrastructure project means great loss for port fleet
While infrastructure projects around the world are meant to improve cargo flow, the case isn’t the same for one unlucky port in Ukraine.
The Mariupol port reported losing an incredible 33% of its fleet and around 100,000 tonnes of metal products (per month) due to the recent construction of a… bridge. The bridge across the Kerch Strait (between mainland Russia and Crimea) came with strict restrictions for the naval traffic. As a result, all ships which heights exceed 33 meters cannot pass bellow the new bridge, according to a posting on the Facebook page of Ukraine’s Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP).
Russia imposed the restriction for all Panamax type ships higher than 33 meters, which until recently were passing though the Kerch Strait, towards the Mariupol port with no problems.
Even so, the port remains the city’s top-strategic enterprise, which allows for transshipment of cargo up to 21 million tonnes per year. This, however decreased by almost 67%, due to Russia’s intervention in Eastern Ukraine.
Considering the loss of business, the country’s Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDP, Vadym Chernysh offered a solution: ‘In order to improve the situation in the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk, several possibilities are now being discussed. One of them is the use of domestic financial resources that could remain in the ports. The EU additional funds are an equally important financial resource’.
