The freight train rushes into the huge forest of scrap metal, skirting tall iron monsters – cranes, metal bridges and sprawling conveyor belts – before stopping in front of a row of sheds. In the wagons sleeps a precious commodity: corn, which has traveled a long journey from the plains of Ukraine, 300 kilometers as the crow flies, to arrive in the Romanian port of Constanta, on the shores of the Black Sea.
Grown on the “chernozem”, the fertile black soil of this country at war, corn is, like the 20 million tonnes of seeds harvested in 2021 in Europe’s “breadbasket”, stored in silos. Long ago, these stocks should have crossed the Bosphorus Strait to feed populations in Asia, Africa and Europe. But the Ukrainian ports, where 150 million tonnes of goods pass through each year, are at a standstill. The mines float off Odessa and the ships, whose insurance prices are climbing, no longer venture there. Subject to the Russian blockade, the traffic of the Black Sea, bordered by Russia and Ukraine, but also by Bulgaria, Georgia, Turkey and Romania, is completely turned upside down.
stranded sailors
In an emergency, the 38 operators and 7,000 employees of Constanta, one of the ports closest to the Ukrainian coast, took over. From the first days of the conflict, the city saw the landing of ships diverted from their trajectory, which should have reached Mariupol or Odessa. Ukrainian sailors on a stopover, vague in their souls, never left; cargo destined for Ukraine or Moldova pile up on the quays.
Before the war, the port of Constanta did not transport Ukrainian goods. Precipitated by tragedy, this role suits him very well. Enlarged in 1967 by the megalomaniac communist leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, who wanted to make it the largest port on the Black Sea, this infrastructure has been hosting, for decades, norias of trucks and trains, but also barges from one of the Romanian arms of the Danube. Amounting to 68 million tonnes of goods in 2021, traffic has already grown by 20% since the start of the year, with the arrival of Ukrainian ships.
Putin’s weapon
While the European Union is looking for new routes to sell Ukrainian cereals, Lucia Fifere, the spokesperson for the Romanian port authorities, assures that the port of Constanta, “strategic, can become a world hub for the transit of agricultural products from ‘Ukraine”. For the time being, the site has managed the transport of 300,000 tonnes of seeds, estimate local operators. Compared to the 20 million tons blocked in the country at war, it is still very little. “We have to do better! exclaims Viorel Panait, who heads Comvex, the leading grain operator in the port of Constanta. The grain shortage is Putin’s weapon to cause chaos. If we do not act, the inflation will explode, but also famine and revolts.”
Especially since, recalls this businessman, “the export of seeds is the specialty of the port”. At the heart of the site stands an old building: the first concrete grain silo, designed in 1896 by Anghel Saligny. This Romanian engineer developed this port and its logistics around the rich Romanian agricultural production, which then fed Europe. Today, the port of Constanta still handles 25 million tons of seed every year. “With good organization, it could handle 60 million tons,” believes Viorel Panait. That’s triple the harvest blocked in Ukraine! “But we would need the help of Brussels, he adds. We must simplify the administrative formalities.” European border, Romania imposes controls on trucks coming from non-EU countries, such as Ukraine or Moldova. These procedures waste drivers’ time, “while we are in a hurry”, continues this businessman, nervous at the approach of the new cereal harvests, which will begin in June. “Politicians must invest in rail and river supply routes in Romania, he says. Our country is close to Ukraine – barely 900 kilometers by train and 250 kilometers by barge. And we are only 2000 kilometers of the Suez Canal.”
Logistic puzzle
But redrawing the maps, even over short distances, is a complex undertaking, nuance Dorinel Cazacu, president of another operator, Socep, which imports all types of foodstuffs, including cereals. At the wheel of his car, the affable man drives along the Promenade, near the mythical casino, under construction. Off the seaside town, a dozen freighters wait on the sparkling water. Arrived in the bowels of the port, he shows the 6000 containers which pile up on his vast terminal. The features drawn under his construction helmet, he makes quick calculations. Bringing goods from Ukraine to Constanta is a necessity, he says, but also a logistical headache. Bypassing the Black Sea is in fact equivalent to taking land routes, involving vehicles of lesser capacity, compared to the huge bulk carriers which can transport up to 100,000 tonnes of cereals. “The first transport option is truck, but it is not tenable for large cargoes, because a heavy truck only transports 20-25 tons of goods.” Especially since Ukrainian truck drivers, requisitioned for the fighting, are rare, recalls Dorinel Cazacu, saddened by this conflict which revived in him the “fear of nuclear weapons” which had frightened him so much during the “reign” by Ceausescu (1967-1989).
The second option for transporting products from Ukraine to Constanta is by train. But this requires renovating infrastructure in poor condition. “Used in Ceausescu’s time to import metals, they were gradually abandoned”, he says, pointing to a stretch of some 300 kilometers of port rails, overgrown with poppies and weeds. The Ministry of Transport has started to restore part of the national railways. But here again, Bucharest comes up against a major obstacle. The rails of Romania have indeed a gauge of 1435 millimeters (European standard) against 1520 millimeters for the Ukrainian rails, with Soviet standards.
How to solve this problem ? The solution may lie near the Romanian river port of Galati, located 200 kilometers north of Constanta on the Danube. The government of Bucharest has just launched a call for tenders for the rehabilitation of a section of a railway line adapted to the Soviet gauge. Located on the Romanian-Moldovan border, it would allow Ukrainian trains to access this small port and sell much larger cargoes of cereals. But how long will it take to restore it? Manager at Trade Transport Services, logistics operator on the Danube, Gabriel-Andrei Techera remains circumspect. His company, like all the others, is sailing on sight in the current storm, and investing in such a project, in this climate of uncertainty, seems very intrepid to him. “We don’t know if the war will last, he said, if the Ukrainian roads are still in good condition and if the harvests will be there in 2022 in Ukraine.” Those of the eastern regions, like Lugansk and Donetsk, under the bombs, are already lost. Due to the Russian blockade, Ukrainian wheat exports are expected to fall this year by 50%. And on Sunday June 5, Russian missiles hit railway infrastructure in the suburbs of kyiv. If Moscow claims to have targeted tanks supplied by Eastern European countries, the Ukrainians claim that the destroyed wagons were used to transport grain. And accuse the Russians of preventing Ukrainian trains from exporting their crops to the West.