---
title: "Queue of 60 Vessels at Sulina: Ukraine Urged to Negotiate with Romania on Pilots and Inspection Teams"
description: "A queue of around 60 vessels has built up at the Sulina Channel, some waiting for a week or longer. Experts urge Kyiv to urgently agree with Bucharest on a larger number of pilots and parallel operation of processing commissions."
date: 2026-08-26T15:56:03.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/sulina-channel-queue-romania-negotiations
tags: [sulina-channel, ukraine-export, romania, maritime-logistics, shipping, trade]
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# Queue of 60 Vessels at Sulina: Ukraine Urged to Negotiate with Romania on Pilots and Inspection Teams

![Queue of cargo ships and tankers on the water near Sulina: vessels waiting for pilots and passage through the Danube](https://xab.info/media/2026/08/26/sulina-channel-queue-romania-negotiations/sulina-channel-queue-romania-negotiations-1.webp)

## 🎯 Key Points

- Around 60 vessels are waiting to pass through the Sulina Channel, some for a week or longer, with idling costing 6,000–7,000 dollars per day.
- The main bottlenecks are the shortage of Romanian pilots and the operation of only a single processing commission (1–2 hours per vessel).
- Experts urge Ukraine's new cabinet to promptly agree with Romania on more pilots, parallel commissions, and transparent coordination of services.

A queue of roughly 60 vessels is moving through the Sulina Channel, which today serves as a key alternative route for Ukrainian exports. According to Kateryna Kononenko, operations manager at the company "Avalon," some of them have been sitting at anchor for a week or more, and the queue continues to grow. Each day of idling costs the vessel owner 6,000–7,000 dollars, turning organizational breakdowns at the channel into direct financial losses for the industry. The expert stated outright that Ukraine needs to promptly hold negotiations with Romania to increase Sulina's throughput capacity.

### The Cost of Idling and the Growing Queue

As Kononenko explained, the problem is not accidental but systemic: vessels are not idling because of weather or technical malfunctions, but because of bottlenecks in paperwork processing and the pilotage service. At a rate of 6,000–7,000 dollars per day, even a week of waiting turns into tens of thousands of dollars in losses per vessel, and the cumulative burden on the logistics chain is many times greater than these figures. Against this backdrop, the buildup of the queue becomes not merely an inconvenience but a factor that hits the competitiveness of Ukrainian exports as a whole.

### Pilot Shortage and a Single Working Commission

One of the main constraints remains the shortage of Romanian pilots: it is they, not Ukrainian pilots, who have the authority to guide vessels through Sulina. Even increasing their numbers, in Kononenko's assessment, will not fully solve the problem, because only one commission processing vessels operates at Sulina. It takes at least an hour per vessel, and in complex cases up to two hours. "If three or four such commissions were working, several vessels could be processed in parallel, and the queue would move much faster," she emphasized.

### Opaque Coordination Between Services

The expert named opaque coordination between AMPU, the Lower Danube Administration in Galați, and the services at Sulina as an additional problem. Vessel agents, she said, cannot see the lists and do not know until the last moment whether a given vessel will be assigned a pilot. Such uncertainty makes planning impossible and reinforces the "traffic jam" effect at the channel. Kononenko noted that the situation largely repeats the problems of 2022, even though four years have already passed since then.

### The New Minister's Tasks and the Macroeconomic Stakes

Under such conditions, one of the top priorities for the new Minister of Development of Communities and Territories, Mykola Kalyuzhnyi, must be an operational dialogue with the Romanian side: increasing the number of pilots, launching several parallel processing commissions, and coordinating the schedule of all involved services. Without resolving these organizational issues, Sulina will not be able to accept a substantially larger flow of vessels or become a full-fledged alternative export route. The stakes are significant macroeconomic losses: according to estimates by the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce, if the maritime corridor does not resume full operation, Ukraine risks losing about 10 billion dollars in GDP, 17 billion dollars in export revenue, and a further 8.5 billion dollars in tax revenues, while more than 30 million tons of agricultural products will fail to reach world markets.

## 🔍 Fact-Check Verification

- [Queue of ships at the Sulina Channel: Ukraine called upon to hold negotiations with Romania](https://www.rbc.ua/ukr/news/sulinskomu-kanali-cherga-korabliv-ukrayinu-1787752270.html) - Единственный первичный источник: комментарий операционной менеджерки «Авалон» Екатерины Кононенко. Подтверждены: очередь ~60 судов, простой 6–7 тыс. $/сутки, дефицит румынских лоцманов, одна оформляющая комиссия (1–2 ч/судно), проблемы координации АМПУ/Галац/Сулина, призыв к переговорам. Макроцифры (10/17/8,5 млрд $, 30 млн т) — вспомогательный контекст по оценкам комитета МТП, не перепроверялись независимо.

## ❓ FAQ

### Q: How many vessels are currently waiting at the Sulina Channel?
**A:** According to the operator "Avalon," around 60 vessels are waiting to pass, some for a week or longer, while the queue continues to grow.

### Q: How much does a day of idling cost a vessel at Sulina?
**A:** A day of idling costs 6,000–7,000 dollars.

### Q: Why can't Ukrainian pilots guide vessels through Sulina?
**A:** Only Romanian pilots have the authority to guide vessels through Sulina; Ukrainian pilots do not have such authority, so the key constraint remains the shortage of Romanian specialists.

### Q: What is proposed to clear the queue?
**A:** Increase the number of Romanian pilots, launch three to four parallel processing commissions instead of one, and establish transparent coordination between AMPU, the Lower Danube Administration in Galați, and the services at Sulina.