Romanian authorities will accelerate the passage of ships along the Danube to Ukrainian ports

Romania is changing the procedure for admitting ships from the Black Sea to the Sulin Canal, which leads to Ukrainian ports on the Danube. The changes should eliminate the queue of 70-80 ships that have accumulated at the entrance to the canal and are waiting for more than two weeks.

Vessels under loading to the Ukrainian ports of Izmail, Reni and Ust-Dunaisk will be inspected and registered not in the Suli Canal itself, as it was until now, but directly in the Black Sea before entering the canal. According to logistics companies, the new procedure will increase the capacity of the canal, relieve ships from being tied to berths in the canal and reduce the number of unnecessary dangerous maneuvers in it.

According to experts interviewed by Reuters, the formation of a large queue was facilitated by excessive bureaucracy, a shortage of pilots and a sharp increase in traffic due to the blocking of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea. This led to the fact that the delivery time of Ukrainian grain to Egypt increased from 12 days to more than 30 days. According to experts, through the ports on the Danube, Ukraine will be able to export at least 500 thousand tons of grain per month. In September, it exported about 930 thousand tons, which is significantly less than in September 2025, when this figure was at the level of 1.78 million tons.

Alena Miklashevskaya