Ukraine Terminal Uses Unique Rail-To-Barge Loading Method

On July 17, Russia repudiated its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, an agreement between the United Nations, Turkey, and Ukraine that allowed grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea, signed in Istanbul in July 2022. Russia then began attacking Ukraine grain warehouses and dock infrastructure with missiles. In response, Ukraine adopted a number of measures to keep its grain exports flowing.

One of these is to trans-ship grain from railcars to barges at a railway bridge crossing between the western Ukrainian riverport of Giurgiulesti to the Moldovan port of Galati, where it crosses the river Prut, the border between the two countries. The bridge has two spans that alternate, and railcars can be parked on the non-active span from where the grain is directly loaded onto barges below. The grain is then barged down the Prut to the Danube and on to the Romanian port of Constanta, where it is safe from Russian attacks. At Constanta, the grain is loaded onto ocean-going ships for export.

The loading was described by Antonina Broyaka, an extension association in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Kansas State University, September 22. Broyaka, a refugee from Ukraine, is a former KSU student as well as a former professor at the Vinnytsia National Agrarian University in Ukraine. She has been giving regular webinar updates from KSU on the agricultural situation in Ukraine.