Danube River News

When the Rubymar sank in the Red Sea after a Houthi attack, the ship went down carrying 21,000-tonnes of fertiliser which could trigger massive algal blooms that could create "dead zones" for marine life and starve coral reefs of light.Alongside a slick of leaking fuel, the ammonium phosphate sulphate fertilisers could deliver an extreme pulse of nutrients into waters harbouring rare corals, marine mammals and reef fish, creating a spread of foamy scum on the water.According to a maritime warning circulated to ships in the area…

Agricultural producers in Ukraine say a new Black Sea corridor could enable exports of up to 2.5 million metric tons of food a month, almost offsetting the impact of Russia's decision to quit a U.N.-brokered deal to allow grain shipments through the region.The export deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey collapsed in July as Russia declined to recognize it, saying its demand that sanctions be lifted on its grain and fertilizer exports had not been met.Kyiv has since opened what it says is a temporary humanitarian corridor in a bid to break Russia's de facto blockade.

Ukraine's navy said on Wednesday that 12 more cargo vessels were ready to enter a fledgling Black Sea shipping corridor on their way to Ukrainian ports, as Kyiv steps up a push to defy a de facto Russian blockade on its vital sea exports.Russia, which has a much more powerful and bigger naval fleet in the Black Sea, pulled out of a deal in July that had allowed wartime Ukraine to safely ship food products out through what is traditionally its main export corridor. Ukraine responded by setting up a temporary "humanitarian corridor" for cargo vessels…

Ukrainian officials said Russia struck Ukrainian port infrastructure and grain storage facilities on Tuesday, but also reported some progress on the front lines in the three-month old counteroffensive by its forces.President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke of "good details" from the front without further explanation and said Ukraine clearly understood where to apply pressure to make it felt in Moscow."Sanctions are not enough. There will also be more of our own Ukrainian actions against the terrorist state," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

The crew of a Togo-flagged general cargo ship bound for one of Ukraine's Danube river ports was evacuated early on Wednesday after an explosion on board near the Romanian port of Sulina, Romanian officials said.The Seama ship reported an explosion early on Wednesday and requested the evacuation of the 12-person crew near Sulina, where the Danube flows into the Black Sea."At the moment the causes ... are unclear, whether it was a mine or merely an explosion in the engine room," Romanian…

Ukraine’s Danube Shipping Company (DSC) has asked Romania’s Constanta Black Sea port to allow ship-to-ship grain transfers which would almost double its barge export capacity, the company said on Monday.A major grower and exporter, Ukraine’s 2023 grain output is seen at up to 56 million metric tons but a blockade of its major Black Sea ports since Russia’s invasion in February 2022 has constrained shipments.Ukraine’s Danube river ports, which previously accounted for around a quarter of grain exports, are now the main route out for the country’s harvest, some of which is sent on barges to Cons

The European Commission said on Friday that it would not extend a ban on imports of Ukrainian grains into Ukraine's five EU neighbors due to expire on Friday."It has concluded that thanks to the work of the Coordination Platform and to the temporary measures introduced on 2 May 2023, the market distortions in the 5 Member States bordering Ukraine have disappeared," the European Commission said in a statement.Restrictions imposed by the European Union in May allowed Poland, Bulgaria…

Ukraine has started exporting grain via Croatian seaports, aiming to broaden its export routes while its Black Sea ports are blocked, a senior Ukrainian official said on Thursday.Ukraine's main grain export route is usually via its deep Black Sea ports, but Kyiv has been looking for alternative routes since Russia invasion last year and Moscow's decision to quit the Black Sea grain export deal in mid-July.Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during a visit to Zagreb in late July…

Ukrainian railways have partially restricted cargo shipments to Ukraine's major Danube River port Izmail, which has been the target of Russian drone attacks in recent weeks, the railways said on Monday.The restrictions began on Sunday, the railways said in a statement.Russia has attacked Ukrainian ports on the Danube River with drones two nights in a row. The latest attack on the Danube River port of Izmail, in Ukraine's southern Odesa region, hit warehouses and production buildings…

The southern Ukrainian region of Odesa, which has ports on the Black Sea and Danube River, is introducing a new export control mechanism for grain, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Thursday."From now on, vessels (barges) will be loaded only after a preliminary analysis of the legality of the grain's origin," he said, adding that all customs declarations would have to be registered prior to the loading of export goods.The measure is aimed at strengthening discipline, accounting and reporting in foreign economic activity, he said.Analysts have said that a significant amount of grain is bough

Russian drones struck Ukrainian grain facilities at the Danube River port of Izmail overnight in what a senior official said on Wednesday was a systematic attempt by Moscow to prevent Kyiv exporting grain to the world.Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the port's export capacity had been reduced by 15% and that 13,000 metric tons of grain had been destroyed.Grain facilities in the Odesa region on the Black Sea also came under fire in the eighth wave of attacks on Ukrainian…

Ukraine is considering using its newly-tested wartime Black Sea export corridor for grain shipments after other cargo ships follow the first successful evacuation of a vessel on the route last week, a senior agricultural official said on Monday.Russia has blockaded Ukrainian ports since it invaded its neighbour in Feb. 2022 and threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets after pulling out of a U.N.-backed safe passage deal last month.In response, Ukraine announced a "humanitarian corridor" hugging the sea's western coastline near Romania and Bulgaria.

A container ship set off from Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa on Wednesday in a test of Russia's threat to attack shipping after it abandoned a deal last month allowing Ukraine to export grain.The departure of the Hong-Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte, which had been in the port since Feb. 23, 2022 - the day before Russia's invasion - followed a new Russian attack on Ukraine's grain export infrastructure.Russian air strikes damaged grain silos and warehouses at one of the Danube river ports…

Ukraine's air force on Wednesday said a large group of Russian army drones entered the mouth of the Danube River and headed toward the Izmail river port near the border with Romania.Social media groups reported hearing air defence systems firing in the area near two Danube ports - Izmail and Reni.The governor of southern Odesa region, Oleh Kiper, asked residents of Izmail district to take shelter at around 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT) and cancelled the air raid alert one hour later.Ukraine's…

Merchant ships remained backed up in lanes around the Black Sea on Monday as ports struggled to clear backlogs amid growing unease among insurers and shipping companies a day after a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo vessel.Russia said its Vasily Bykov patrol ship on Sunday fired on the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel after the ship's captain failed to respond to a request to halt for an inspection. After an inspection, the vessel continued its journey towards the Ukrainian port of Izmail along the Danube river…

Dozens of ships are backed up around critical Danube arteries close to Ukraine's river gateways days after Russian drone attacks on the country's ports, shipping data showed on Tuesday.The river and its mouth are Ukraine's last remaining waterborne grain export route.Russia has attacked the agricultural and port infrastructure of Ukraine, one of the world's top grain exporters, in recent weeks after refusing to extend a year-old safe passage grain corridor brokered by the United…

Romania expects around 30 ships from Ukraine to clear customs on the Danube River over the next two days as it bids to clear a logjam in the aftermath of Wednesday's Russian attack on Ukraine's main river port at Izmail.The river and its mouth, now Ukraine's last waterborne grain export route, are backed up with vessels travelling to and from Ukrainian ports, commercial ship tracking data shows.Romanian authorities managing the waterway still expect a "peak" in traffic in August…

Russian state news agency RIA said overnight Russian strikes on the Ukrainian port of Izmail had hit port and grain infrastructure housing foreign mercenaries and military hardware, as well as a naval ship repair yard.RIA cited Sergei Lebedev, a man it described as a coordinator of an underground group in the Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv and who it said had sources in Izmail, Ukraine's main inland port across the Danube River from Romania.It quoted Lebedev as saying that there had been eight separate Russian strikes on Izmail and that an oil terminal had been hit…

Britain has information indicating the Russian military may move beyond attacks on Ukrainian grain facilities to target civilian shipping in the Black Sea, Britain's U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said on Tuesday.British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak shared the information with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a phone call on Tuesday, Woodward said.Britain's information also indicates that Russia has laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports, she said."We agree with the U.S.

Russia destroyed Ukrainian grain warehouses on the Danube River in a drone attack on Monday, targeting a vital export route for Kyiv in an expanding air campaign that Moscow began last week after quitting the Black Sea grain deal.Last week's attacks mostly struck the sea ports of Odesa but Monday's pre-dawn strikes hit infrastructure along the Danube, an export route whose importance has grown since the demise of the deal allowing Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea."The Russian terrorists have again attacked the Odesa region overnight.

Romania's Constanta port, Ukraine's main alternative route for grain since Russia's withdrawal led to the collapse of the Black Sea shipment deal, has capacity to handle extra cargoes until mid-August, the head of the port's business association said.He added operators were also seeking to increase capacity.Even before Russia on Monday quit a safe passage grain corridor through Ukraine's own ports, Constanta had emerged as the biggest alternative shipping route. It has handled roughly a third of Ukraine's grain exports since the start of the war.Transit pressure will mount on Constanta…

Ukraine wants to begin work to make its Danube shipping canal deeper as early as this year to expand its alternative routes to export grain, Deputy Minister of Renovation and Infrastructure Yuriy Vaskov said on Tuesday.Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia last year, has already increased the depth of its southwestern Bystre Canal on the Danube River to 6.5 meters from 3.9 meters with the aim of increasing food exports from its river ports.The push for alternative export routes has taken on urgency during the war after Russia blocked Ukraine's traditional export route via the Black Sea and only

The European Commission has announced restrictions on the imports of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria until June 5.The move led to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria lifting unilateral import bans they had imposed citing the need to protect their farmers. Romania had not banned imports.Here are some of the issues:WHY IS UKRAINE EXPORTING THROUGH EASTERN EUROPE?Ukraine mainly exported agricultural products…