Shipowners are trying to refuse charter orders to Romanian and Bulgarian ports after a containership was sunk by sea drones off Bulgaria, Lloyd's List's editor-in-chief said. Experts say the spread of attacks toward NATO coastlines now has commercial consequences1.
Richard Meade said analysts had been approached about potential charter-party disputes, with some owners seeking to refuse orders to Romanian and Bulgarian ports1. "That suggests to me that the calculation is shifting from how much the risk costs to whether owners, charterers and crews are prepared to accept it at all," he told a Lloyd's List briefing reported by gCaptain1.
No charter-party dispute has been confirmed in public. Meade described the approaches as potential cases1.
Attacks near Romania are not new. Ambrey said they had been very sporadic and rare, and mostly happened off Sulina, where ships wait to enter Ukrainian waters or the Danube delta1.
Ambrey has recorded 696 security events in the Western Black Sea, about 537 of them in Ukrainian waters, and direct attacks on merchant vessels in Romanian, Bulgarian, Turkish and Georgian waters1. Between 5 and 28 October it counted 10 strikes on ships at sea, eight by aerial drones and two by uncrewed surface vessels. It attributed all of them to Russia1. Russia denies targeting Ukraine's neighbours with drones and says European governments are escalating the war by supplying military aid4.
"All vessels operating in the Western Black Sea are now facing heightened threat and greater exposure," said Tomas Alexa, a senior analyst at Ambrey1.
Ambrey still rates the threat of a direct strike on a ship with no link to Ukraine as negligible to low1. A Ukrainian link to owner, manager, charterer, cargo or last or next port is enough to fit its targeting profile1.
The Contship Jet and the beach at Tsarevo
The Contship Jet was Greek-owned, chartered to Zim, and carrying 421 containers when three sea drones struck it5. The ship sank around midnight on 29 October, about 17 nautical miles east of Varna, and all 18 crew were rescued5.
Its manifest listed lithium-ion batteries, corrosive liquids and acids among the hazardous cargo5. Reports said the general cargo bound for Romania included Christmas goods6. Containers began washing ashore on 1 November, and one became stuck in rocks near Tsarevo the next day. Rough seas stopped the navy from recovering them6. Zim said the expected financial damage was minimal and that it was securing a replacement vessel5.
What a Black Sea call costs now
The Joint War Committee, which sets marine war-risk areas for the London market, made the Black Sea a designated war risk zone on 16 September 20262. In September the London insurance market widened the high-risk area it lists, exempting only the territorial waters of Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey7.
One of the nine ships struck in October was in Romanian territorial waters. The other eight were outside territorial waters, off Romania or Bulgaria, Reuters reported4.
CMA CGM will charge a war risk surcharge of US$35 per TEU, the standard 20-foot container, on all cargo to and from Black Sea countries from 9 November2. For the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America it starts on 1 December2.
MSC has charged an emergency operations surcharge since 1 November: US$200, €200 or £200 per container. It applies to cargo from Greece, Turkey, the Black Sea and non-Italian Adriatic ports to north-west Europe, the UK and the ScanBaltic region8.
"It is expensive because of the attacks and a few insurers are shying away," a source in the London insurance market told Reuters7. Owners can still get cover for the Romanian Black Sea, the source said7.
Constanta handled 51.55 million tons of cargo by the end of September, virtually unchanged from a year earlier, and grain exports rose 7% to 15.8 million metric tons7. Ukrainian grain through the port rose to 1.03 million tons from 321,000 tons7. The figures predate the October attacks7.
Grain: what is actually offline
Ambrey data show Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports and infrastructure have reduced the country's seaborne export capability by up to 95%1. The figure is about capability, not a single month's volumes1. Government data show Ukraine's port grain exports fell to 0.81 million metric tons in September from 2.1 million a year earlier4.
Russia's exports have fallen too. Its Black Sea and Sea of Azov grain exports were 0.3 million metric tons in September, against 4.74 million a year earlier, according to export data seen by Reuters4. Russia has shifted to the Baltic, which handled 1.2 million tons in September, more than 60% of its seaborne grain exports9. It also began loading a first Arctic shipment of 3,400 metric tons at Murmansk9.
The harvest is not the constraint. The USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service sees Ukraine's wheat, corn and barley stocks rising roughly fourfold in 2026/27, to almost 25 million metric tons1. Output of the three crops would also be the largest since 2021/221. Ukraine's agriculture minister has warned the country may need 10 to 12 million metric tons of extra temporary storage1.
Russia and Ukraine together account for about 27% of global wheat exports1. Chicago wheat futures have hit their highest level since 2023 and are up 20% in the first nine months of the year1. They traded at about $6 a bushel on 5 November, recovering from a near four-month low the day before3.
On 5 November, Russia's IKAR consultancy cut its 2026/27 wheat export forecast to 39.5 million metric tons from 42 million, according to Interfax3.
Patrols, and no ceasefire
France has extended by several weeks the stay of an Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft at Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu base. It deployed there on 18 October10. The aircraft detected the three drones that struck the Contship Jet and warned the ship and Bulgarian authorities an hour before the attack10.
"We are able to detect. We are not able to neutralize and intercept these kind of drones," its commander said10.
October brought at least nine strikes on cargo ships off Romania and Bulgaria, and some 34 seafarers were reported dead or missing10. Turkey is waiting for Russian and Ukrainian answers to a narrow maritime ceasefire proposal. Russia has rejected the idea4.
"Everyone is talking about diesel and forgetting about grain. In a month or two, everyone will start talking about an agricultural crisis," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in October4.
Ambrey expects the attacks to continue for the next couple of months1.