by Claudio Del Frate
Razoni is transporting 26,000 tons of corn that should arrive in Lebanon. But the buyer refuses the freight after waiting for it for 5 months. “We are looking for another customer,” says the embassy in Kyiv
His departure from the port of Odessa was greeted as a wish for peace between Russia and Ukraine. But the Razoni ship does not seem to be a lucky star: it has been anchored off a port in southern Turkey for four days because the recipient of the cargo, over 26,000 tons of corn, refused to accept it. “I’ve been waiting for him for five months, too late.” At the moment, however, no one has come forward to buy back the grain.
Marinetraffic’s tracking page shows the Razoni – a Sierra Leonean-flagged freighter – motionless a few miles from the Mediterranean port of Mersin on Turkey’s southern coast. Their destination was Lebanon, but the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut explained the reason for this standstill: “According to the exporter on board the ship, the buyer in Lebanon refused to accept the cargo due to delays.” . In fact, the 26,000 tons of corn to be processed into animal feed has been expected in the Middle East since last February.
what will happen now “The shipper is now looking for another recipient to deliver the cargo to, possibly in Lebanon,” the Kyiv Embassy in Beirut always says on its Facebook profile. A paradox, because the blockade of the grain trade brought many economies, especially in Africa and the Middle East, into a crisis of survival.
Razoni took off from Odessa a week ago after an agreement – the first since the conflict began – between Russia and Ukraine and thanks to Turkey’s mediation. The cargo had made its way through the mines scattered across the Black Sea, and many – starting with Pope Francis – had read the first glimmer of peace in that event. After the ship from Sierra Leone, six other units have set sail from Odessa, where about 20 million tons of grain are stationed. Ukraine guarantees 10% of world wheat production, and just the end of the blockade and the expectations it brought had led to a sharp drop in world food prices. The FAO also confirmed this decline and calculated it worldwide by 8.6% in one month.
August 10, 2022 (change August 10, 2022 | 10:19)
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