Ukraine grain pushes Romanian Constanta port to record volumes in 2023

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta recorded its highest grain exports in 2023 thanks to a surge in shipments from Ukraine and ongoing European Union-funded infrastructure projects, the port authority told Reuters on Wednesday.

The port shipped 36 million metric tons of grain last year, it said, up 50% from the previous year.

Ukrainian grain accounted for roughly 40% of the total, or 14 million tons, up from 13.0 million at the end of November and from 8.6 million in the whole of 2022.

Ukraine is one of the world's biggest grain exporters, and Constanta has become Kyiv's largest alternative export route since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, with grains arriving by road, rail and barge across the Danube.

But its transit volumes have fallen since July when Russia began repeatedly striking its river ports that lie across the Danube from European Union and NATO member Romania.

In August, Ukraine created a shipping corridor from its own ports which hugs the western Black Sea coast near Romania and Bulgaria, shortly after Russia withdrew from a 2022 U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain export deal and threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets.

Earlier this week, it said it has exported 10 million tons of agricultural goods through the corridor.

Romania aims to boost its transit capacity for Ukrainian grain to 4 million tons per month, and is currently upgrading rail and road infrastructure in and around the port.

On Wednesday, the port said EU-funded investment projects in and around Constanta finalised last year and ongoing in 2024 total 546.8 million euros ($598.47 million). Further projects worth an additional 218 million euros were pending, it said.

In December, Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu said an EU-funded project to enable round-the-clock navigation on the Danube river's Sulina canal, which goes to Constanta, had been finalised and would become operational pending staff training.

The overall traffic of goods in Constanta totalled 92.5 million tons in 2023, up 22.5% on the year, the port authority said.

(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Christina Fincher)