Located in the south-west of Ukraine, near the Black Sea, the city of Odessa, 1 million inhabitants, plays an absolutely structuring role within the country's economy.
World famous through Sergei Eisenstein's film
The Battleship Potemkin
(1925), the "
pearl of the Black Sea
" is also an economic space, but above all a strategic port, guaranteeing the country's energy and food sovereignty.
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The 1st Ukrainian port
Odessa is therefore above all the main port of Ukraine.
The only one with a national scope and technical, technological and logistical capacities capable of accommodating incoming and outgoing trade flows from the country.
It is, truly, Ukraine's gateway to the world and the almost obligatory crossing point for all goods passing through the country.
A situation, therefore, of quasi-monopoly within Ukrainian foreign trade.
91.4 million tonnes of goods received in 2019
Taken together, the “
three
” ports of Odessa thus received, in 2019, 7.7 million tonnes of “
liquid bulk
” [crude oil and liquefied gas] and 83.7 million tonnes of “
dry cargo
” [ minerals, coal and scrap metal], i.e. 91.4 million tonnes of goods.
These ports, the only ones in the country to have basins deep enough to accommodate large-scale container ships, thus represent
64.8% of all Ukrainian exports and 67% of Ukrainian imports
.
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Furthermore, taking advantage of the region's infrastructure and economic dynamism, many petrochemical industries (especially liquefied ammonia) and semiconductor supply chains have settled in the region.
100% of imported oil passes through Odessa
It is important to note that Odessa has precisely three distinct port units, specializing in the handling of different goods:
From that of
Odessa
, Ukraine exports most of its metallurgical products and welcomes 64.5% of the container ships arriving in the country.
Moreover, 100% of oil imported from abroad arrives through this port.
Starting point of 100% of Ukrainian agricultural products exported...
In terms of foodstuffs, 100% of Ukrainian agricultural products are exported from the port unit of
Chornomorsk
, which is also the entry point for 67.5% of the food imported by Ukraine.
... and 100% chemicals
Finally, 100% of chemical products, 71.8% of iron ore and 64.2% of coal produced in the country are produced from the
Y
uzhniy
port unit .
The capture of the city by the Russian army could thus lead to an almost complete shutdown of Odessa's port activities and therefore, in view of all the figures mobilized, to a paralysis of the country's economy, which will then not be no longer truly capable of exporting its resources or importing food products or even humanitarian aid.
All the data comes from calculations made by I. Savchuk, Senior Researcher at the ANS Institute of Geography in Kyiv, based on data from the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine.