The Black Sea ports and their capacity

A port is usually described by tonnage. What determines its usefulness is a shorter list: how deep the water is, how long the berths are, how fast cargo moves across the quay and how well it connects inland.

The three main ports

Odesa: the oldest and most urban, handling a mixed cargo base including containers, with the constraints that come from sitting inside a city.

Chornomorsk: a working cargo port with ferry and general cargo capability alongside bulk.

Pivdennyi: the deepest, built for very large bulk carriers, which makes it the one that determines the country's competitive freight cost for ore and grain.

Why depth is the first question

A vessel loads to its draught. A port two metres shallower than a competitor cannot fill the same ship, so it either sends it out part-loaded or loses the cargo. Dredging is therefore not maintenance; it is the determinant of what class of vessel a port can serve.

Dredging is also continuous, because rivers deposit silt and channels fill in. A port that stops dredging becomes shallower every year without anybody deciding it should.

The hinterland

Rail capacity to the port gates matters as much as the quay. A berth that can load ten thousand tonnes a day and a railway that can deliver five thousand is a five-thousand-tonne port.

The reconstruction view

Repairing damaged handling equipment, restoring depth and upgrading the rail approaches are the three investments with the clearest return, and they compound: each is worth more once the others are done.

Choosing a port I look not at the number of cranes but at the depth and at the railway behind it; which vessel can berth and how many wagons can be discharged is what sets the cost of a cargo. That the three ports are not interchangeable is a fact known to anyone who plans shipments and rarely written in reports. Capacity is not a total but each port's own constraint.