Waiting at Sulina could cost a vessel up to $160 thsd

Prolonged waiting times at the Sulina anchorage are generating significant additional costs for shipping operators.

This was reported by Kateryna Kononenko, Operations Manager at Avalon Shipping.

She described a vessel that arrived at the Sulina anchorage on September 25 and, as of October 27, had been waiting for more than a month, remaining approximately 50th in the queue.

According to Kononenko, the vessel faces at least another 10 days of waiting, even if the Sulina Canal remains open for the next two weeks and five pilots are available daily to guide vessels to Ukrainian ports. Further delays could extend this period to two weeks or longer.

The financial impact is substantial. At an assumed demurrage rate of $4,000 per day, 40 days of waiting would cost $160,000 — an amount that Kononenko noted would previously have covered freight costs for an entire voyage.

She warned that lengthy queues and mounting costs are raising serious questions about the economic viability of shipping through Danube ports.

“How commercially viable can Danube logistics be if the cost of waiting to enter exceeds the cost of transportation itself?” Kononenko said.

Tags: export, agricultural products, Danube ports, Ukraine