Last summer, Region Grain Company set a record by bringing a handysize vessel into the port of Izmail. Gennadiy Matkovskiy, one of the company’s partners, told Latifundist.com about it.
“This is a 154-metre MOAYAD vessel. We chartered it: we loaded 14,000 tonnes in Izmail, then another 10,000 tonnes in Constanta. This is a precedent for the port of Izmail. Previously, we used to load vessels with a deadweight of 10-12 thousand tonnes at our elevator in this port. This is the first time we have loaded a 25,000-tonne vessel. Near the elevator, the vessel was unable to turn around and load, so we loaded it from the port’s eighth berth – with cranes. And even they could barely reach the vessel,” recalls Gennadiy Matkovskiy, one of the partners.
Currently, RGC exports grain mainly on CIF terms. The main markets are Bangladesh, Vietnam, Egypt, Spain, Italy, and Turkey.
Last season, the holding exported about 1.5 million tonnes of grain from Ukraine, transshipping cargo both on the Danube and in the ports of Greater Odesa. RGC faced a tough period in August last year and lasted until the end of December.
At that time, the company was able to load up to 8,000 tonnes of grain onto barges per day and operated from four loading points – in Reni, Izmail and Chornomorsk. After that, the vessels were sent to Constanta, where the grain was reloaded onto panamaxes.
