Reforms and remedies

However, it’s going to be an uphill struggle, as there is a lot of history to get past.

Andrew Griffiths of BMT and Steve Wray of OSC both agree there have been a number of speculative ventures tried in the Ukraine, but it seems that very few have so far made it to fruition, getting tangled by the web of red tape and a certain lack of business savvy on the part of the local owners.

It won’t have helped that while Yuzhny’s Transinvestservice (TIS) was one that finally made it though a very difficult time with the local state-run port landlord, others will have taken note of the issues, says Andrii Kuzmenko, recently of TIS.

Further, reform is still going to be a lengthy business, “and it’s one that should have started a long, long time ago”, adds Mr Kuzmenko.

It’s not just the laws that need to be restructured to gain the most from the volumes. “A lot of terminals that have grown organically over the years have structural inefficiencies ‘designed in’,” says Michiel Ybema of APM Terminals.

So, APM Terminal’s Poti operation in Georgia is undergoing major changes, including berth deepening and new layout in its attempt to establish Poti as a hub for the region. The operator is investing some €100m in the port, a truly tremendous amount for Georgia, and it will be looking at pushing up capacity by 50% to 22m tonnes.

However, although it might pull volumes from some of its Black Sea neighbours, it’s not really looking at direct competition with the Turkish Marmara ports, because in the current circumstances container lines are neither willing nor able to skip the Turkish ports, explains Mr Ybema.

But it is growing, and the role of the regulatory side cannot be underestimated. “What helps is that the Georgian government is very business-friendly towards trying to attact more business to Georgia ports,” says Mr Kuzmenko.