JCC resumes inspections of ships transiting grain corridor

MOSCOW. May 22 (Interfax) - The Joint Coordination Center (JCC) inspected three bulkers destined for Ukrainian ports on Friday, these include Panama-flagged MV Garnet headed to Chernomorsk, and MV F-Line and MV Super Martinelli flying the flag of Barbados that are traveling to Odessa.

These are the first inspections held since May 6, the Ukrainian media said, citing the JCC website. No outbound ships were inspected on Friday.

As reported, MV Meroving, carrying 6,800 tonnes of wheat to Italy, departed from the Chernomorsk port on Friday. Another two ships, which left the ports of Odessa and Chernomorsk on May 14 and 17, respectively, were not inspected either.

According to the JCC, 920 inbound ships have been inspected since the launch of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, alongside 950 inspected outbound ships (the gap is explained with the fact that some ships with agricultural cargo were stranded at the ports since the beginning of the crisis).

Fourteen inbound ships were inspected in May, compared to 54 in April and 89 in March. The record number of inspections was reported in September and October: 186 and 136, respectively.

As for the outbound ship inspections, there have been 53 of them in May, versus 65 in April and 85 in March. The record number of outbound ship inspections was seen in October (194), versus 125 in September and 105 in November-December 2022.

The JCC reported a decline in exports from 2.79 million tonnes in April and 3.93 million tonnes in March to 1.07 million tonnes in May. The record level of 4.24 million tonnes was reported in October. The exports total 30.28 million tonnes to date.