The corridor Ukraine opened on its own terms

When the grain arrangement lapsed in July 2023, the reasonable expectation was that seaborne exports would stop. Ukraine did something else. In August it declared a temporary corridor of its own, running close to the western coast through Romanian and Bulgarian territorial waters.

For that to work, three things had to be solved. Physical safety, addressed through routing, air defence over the ports and mine clearance in the approaches. Insurance, without which no vessel sails: facilities were assembled with international brokers and underwriters, with government participation to backstop war risk cover. And confidence, which only accumulates one uneventful voyage at a time.

What it proved

Volumes recovered, then exceeded what the earlier arrangement had carried, and the corridor took not only grain but metals and other cargo the previous scheme had excluded.

As someone who ships equipment for a living I found this remarkable. A country at war reopened its own sea lane, insured it commercially, and restored an export economy that everyone had written off.