One of Europe’s fast growing ports is in transformation mode with dredging, new facilities and greater rail link projects all underway. When Russia backed out of the UN-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative in mid-July last year Ukraine was forced to shift much more of its exports via the Danube and route shipments via the very busy Romanian port of Constanta. The port, the busiest on the Black Sea, is groaning under the extra traffic, working well above its design capacity. The Romanian government yesterday detailed plans to upgrade rail infrastructure in Constanta to create a second railroad access point. “We continue to invest in developing Constanta port, a strategic objective for Romania,” prime minister Marcel Ciolacu said. “The target is to transform the port into a Black Sea logistics hub.” In May, terminal operator DP World opened three new sites in Romania while in August Splash reported on the Romanian government’s negotiations to buy Moldova’s only port as a complementary asset to Constanța. The Port of Giurgiulești, officially the Giurgiulești International Free Port, is a port on the Danube River at its confluence with the Prut. It is Moldova’s only port accessible to seagoing vessels, situated at km 133 of the River Danube in the south of Moldova near the borders of Romania and Ukraine. It handles a wide variety of cargoes and has depths alongside of 7 m. The port of Constanta is located on the western coast of the Black Sea, 179 nautical miles from the Bosphorus Strait and 85 nautical miles from the Sulina Branch, through which the Danube flows into the sea. It benefits from the pan-European Rhine-Danube transport corridor and plays a key role in the European intermodal transport network, as it sits at the crossroads of trade routes connecting landlocked Central and Eastern European countries with the Transcaucasus region, Central Asia, and the Far East. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsRomania