OREANDA-NEWS. March 05, 2012. Shipments of dry bulk cargo from state-owned Odessa Commercial Sea Port (OCSP, Ukraine) in January-February 2012 totaled 2.69 million tons, up 21.5% over the same period last year, the port authorities said.


In February, handling of dry bulk cargo at berths operated by the company rose 15% from last year’s figure, to 1.35 million tons.


The growth was driven by a 230-percent surge in grain exports (412,500 tons) and a 106.9% gain in iron shipments (372,400 tons).


However, in the reporting period the port saw a decline in liquid bulk segment attributed to the lack of transit crude oil from Venezuela and Azerbaijan.


State-owned Odessa Commercial Sea Port is a largest port in the Black Sea-Azov basin. Port of Odessa is able to handle annually 14 million tons of dry bulk cargo and the same volume of oil products. In 2011, total cargo throughput at the port of Odessa rose 3.7% year-on-year, to 25,621,000 tons.