Ship queue grows at Sulina Canal: Ukraine is urged to hold talks with Romania
Photo: A queue of ships at the Sulina Canal has been waiting for nearly a week (Getty Images)
Ukraine needs to urgently hold talks with Romania on increasing the capacity of the Sulina Canal. This includes increasing the number of Romanian pilots, expanding the capacity of the services responsible for processing vessels, and improving coordination between the Ukrainian and Romanian authorities, according to Katerina Kononenko, operations manager at Avalon.
According to her, around 60 vessels are currently waiting to pass near Sulina. Some have been waiting for a week or longer, while the queue continues to grow. Each day of delay costs a vessel between $6,000 and $7,000.
One of the main constraints remains a shortage of Romanian pilots. Only Romanian pilots are authorized to guide vessels through the Sulina Canal, while Ukrainian pilots do not have the same authority.
However, increasing the number of pilots alone would not fully solve the problem. According to Kononenko, only one commission currently operates in Sulina to process vessels. Processing a single vessel takes at least one hour and, in more complicated cases, up to two hours.
She explained that if three or four such commissions were operating, several vessels could be processed simultaneously, allowing the queue to move much faster.
Another problem is the lack of transparent coordination between the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, the Lower Danube Administration in Galați, and the services in Sulina. Shipping agents cannot see the relevant lists and often do not know until the last moment whether a particular vessel will be assigned a pilot.
According to Kononenko, the situation is very similar to 2022, even though four years have passed since then.
Under these circumstances, one of the main tasks for the new Minister for Communities and Territories Development Mykola Kalashnyk should be quick talks with Romania on increasing the number of pilots, operating several vessel-processing commissions, and creating a coordinated schedule for all services involved.
Without resolving these organizational issues, Sulina will not be able to handle a significantly larger volume of vessels or become a fully fledged backup route for Ukrainian exports.
According to estimates by the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce, if the maritime corridor does not resume operations, Ukraine could lose around $10 billion in GDP, $17 billion in export revenue, and another $8.5 billion in tax revenues. More than 30 million tons of agricultural products could also fail to reach global markets.
