Lloyd’s List: Ukraine denies maritime corridor is closed
Picture showing a port in Ukraine with cranes and cargo containers. Image: Unsplash
Lloyd’s List data analyst Bridget Diakun interviewed Risk Intelligence CEO Hans Tino Hansen and other experts on the threat of sea mines in the Black Sea maritime corridor.
26 October 2023
The original release date of the article was 26 October 2023, as published by Lloyd's List.
The author of the article follows the news of the Black Sea maritime corridor, which was initially reported as closed due to concerns about sea mines, causing confusion. However, Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, clarified that all established routes by the Ukrainian Navy remained open for civilian vessels, considering the military context and weather conditions.
While different entities reported that Ukraine had temporarily suspended the corridor and vessel movements in the northwest region of the Black Sea were delayed, a spokesperson for the ministry of infrastructure only confirmed the delays but did not specify the reason for this matter.
Given that the threat of sea mines is not new, since both Russia and Ukraine have deployed mines along the northwest Black Sea coastline, the interviewed analysts for this Lloyd's List article argue the risk to shippers is relatively low, with the CEO of Risk Intelligence, Hans Tino Hansen, considering it more of a psychological threat.
Hans Tino Hansen’s view is that the four objects, which are most likely sea mines, create more uncertainty than actual threat to shipping, considering the already existing, but relatively low, threat from sea mines. As the existing sea mine threat is originating partly from Ukrainian sea mines which due to weather may have detached themselves from their cables or chains in the existing Ukrainian mine fields, and partly from sea mines delivered by various means by the Russian side. Therefore, the impact from the four sea mines dropped from the air is more of a psychological nature, but does of course involve a risk like the other floating sea mines in the Black Sea, and the Ukrainians do seem to take it seriously with the current restrictions of the Black Sea grain corridor.
Read the article in full here (paywall).
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