On Sunday, a second merchant ship, carrying steel products to Africa, safely reached Romanian waters after leaving the Ukrainian port city of Odesa through a temporary Black Sea corridor.
Earlier in August, Kyiv announced it had created a new maritime humanitarian corridor to allow the many ships stuck since war began 18 months to get out. The Joseph Schulte, a 9,600 teu boxship, was the first to make use of this corridor a couple of weeks ago. Now the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Primus has followed with other stranded ships making vessel voyage plans.
The Primus’s voyage was not all smooth sailing, however. Vessel traffic data from MarineTraffic shows the bulker stopped soon after leaving Odesa for a number of hours before continuing.
Black Sea shipping has been plunged into chaos over the last six weeks after Russia pulled out of a United Nations-brokered grain export deal and then set about targeting Ukrainian ports and grain export infrastructure with Ukraine replying in kind.
Following these first two landmark sailings out of Odesa, Ukrainian officials have said they are now looking at resuming Black Sea grain exports.