The first ship to depart Ukraine under a United Nations and Turkey-brokered deal is looking for another port to unload its grain cargo after the initial Lebanese buyer refused delivery citing a more than five-month delay, Ukraine’s embassy in Lebanon said Monday.
The Sierra Leonian-flagged Razoni ship, carrying 26,000 metric tons of corn for chicken feed, departed from Odessa last Monday and was scheduled to dock in the northern Lebanese port on Sunday.
However, it changed its destination to Turkey’s Mersin port and is currently at anchor off Turkey’s southern coast, according to Refinitiv ship tracker data. It changed its status on Saturday to “order,” meaning the ship was waiting for someone to buy the corn.
“According to the information provided by the shipper of the Ukrainian grain aboard the Razoni, the buyer in Lebanon refused to accept the cargo due to delays in delivery terms,” the embassy said in a Facebook post.
“So the shipper is now looking for another consignee to offload his cargo either in Lebanon/Tripoli or any other country/port.”
“All that I know is that the ship is no longer coming here,” Tripoli Port director Ahmad Tamer said.
The U.N. and Turkey brokered the agreement last month after warnings the halt in Ukrainian grain shipments caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could lead to severe food shortages and even outbreaks of famine in parts of the world.
A total of 12 ships have now been authorized to sail under the deal between Ukraine and Russia – 10 outbound and two headed for Ukraine. Some 322,000 tons of agricultural products have left Ukrainian ports, the bulk of it corn but also sunflower oil and soya.
