Romania launches night navigation of the Sulina estuary of the Danube: this will increase Ukrainian exports

Romania has launched night navigation on the Sulina estuary of the Danube. This was announced by Oleksandr Kubrakov, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, after the third meeting in Romania on building export capacity for Ukrainian ports.

“We are returning with a decision on night navigation on the Sulina Canal. It has already started working. We expect our Romanian colleagues to provide the necessary number of pilots. In this case, we will reach 4 million tons of export capacity per month,” he said.

According to the official, in January-November of this year, the total volume of transshipment through Ukrainian ports on the Danube amounted to almost 30 million tons.

In addition, work continues to increase the capacity of rail and road checkpoints in a quadripartite format: Romania – the United States – the European Commission – Ukraine with the participation of Moldova.

Two of the key issues being worked on are the approval of a pilot project to launch trucks at the Krasnoilsk-Vicovu de Sus checkpoint, as well as a “green corridor” through the Reni Giurgiulesti – Galati checkpoints between Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania.

According to Kubrakov, in November, Ukraine began repair work at the Reni checkpoint to create conditions for joint control with Moldova. It is planned to complete these works and launch joint control by April 2024.

As previously reported by the Romanian side, the night navigation of the Sulina Canal, which should increase the capacity of grain transit from over 2 million tons per month to almost 4 million tons, was supposed to start in October.

The Sulina estuary is the middle of the three main channels of the Danube Delta and the main navigable strait in Romania. It runs between the cities of Tulcea and Sulina and is an artificial channel formed by straightening and deepening the riverbed along most of its length.

Passage through this canal is an alternative to the Kilia estuary, which serves as a border between Romania and Ukraine, and a route to the Ukrainian ports of Reni and Izmail, which are periodically subject to Russian drone attacks. The latest one took place the day before, on December 8.

Tags: Ukraine, export, Romania, Danube ports