Maersk halts shipping to Ukraine until March, continues with Russia

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Shipping group Maersk has halted all its seaborn shipping to Ukraine until at least the end of the month after Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday while keeping supply chains with Russia open, a spokesperson for the group told Quantum.

Freight to and from Ukraine was halted after Russian President Putin ordered a military assault on its neighbour, ordering troops into Ukraine overnight and bombing key Ukrainian cities.

"So far, services in Russia remain available while we have decided not to call any ports in Ukraine until 28 February and stop acceptance orders to and from Ukraine up until further notice," the spokesperson said.

The group said the safety and wellbeing of its employees were of paramount importance.

Denmark-headquartered Maersk said they have a "business continuity strategy" in place to continue surviving its customer supply chains and will keep informing its customers of any further changes to its service.

Shipping group MSC said it had stopped accepting new bookings for cargo to and from Ukraine altogether after it had to deviate container vessel MSC Jessenia R away from the port of Odesa.

"For the time being MSC ships will not call at Ukrainian ports and we are implementing various other operational changes to other vessels in the region to make use of our wide Black Sea port network," the group said in an advisory on Thursday.

"Stacking areas at hubs in the region are already very full and we expect the impact of the Ukraine situation to present additional challenges on top of existing global supply chain disruptions," the container shipping company added.

The statement follows earlier reports of shipbrokers and oil tanker owners refusing to offer their ships to collect crude oil from Russia as they wait for the impending sanctions from the West, which will be announced later on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, bulk carrier Yasa Jupiter, operated by Turkish marine company YA SA Holding, came under rocket fire outside the port of Odesa, forcing her to head for Romanian waters, according to Turkish newswires.