Ukraine Prepares Seized Bulk Carrier for Sale After Years Stranded in Chornomorsk

Ukraine’s Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) is preparing the seized bulk carrier Emmakris III for sale, the agency confirmed late last week.

The vessel remains at Chornomorsk commercial seaport in the Odesa region.

ARMA said an appraiser had assessed the 2000-built ship as being in satisfactory condition.

“In particular, it can be used as a floating grain storage facility for the storage and transshipment of dry cargo,” the agency said.

ARMA added that this use, “may be relevant to the logistics and transport sectors given the need for additional capacity to handle grain and other bulk cargoes.”

No auction date or starting price has been announced. In June, ARMA said a fresh valuation was underway and that it would begin the sale procedure once that valuation was complete.

The agency has described the vessel’s former owner as a company registered in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Court records list Greater Bloom of Hong Kong as the registered owner.

Prosecutors argued that the companies involved were connected to a Rostov-on-Don firm and controlled by Russian citizens.

Emmakris III has been stranded in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. She was at Chornomorsk to load around 60,000 tonnes of grain purchased by the Egyptian Government when the war began.

A court arrested the ship in January 2023 and transferred her to ARMA for management in April that year. The agency sought a manager through an open tender in 2024 and signed a contract with Marinex that October.

In February 2025, Marinex secured a Kyiv court ruling lifting the restrictions on the vessel leaving Chornomorsk. A new arrest order reimposed them six days later.

In June 2025, ARMA said it had worked with the Shipping Administration to prevent an attempt to remove the ship illegally from Ukraine. It also alleged that the manager had breached its contract.

“Given the scale of the vessel, the high costs of its upkeep and the unjustified loss of time, the best and only effective option is its sale,” ARMA said at the time.

Emmakris III was built in Japan. She has a length of 225 metres, a beam of 32.26 metres, a deadweight of 73,281 tonnes, and seven cargo holds.

The ship was under the Panamanian flag at the time of the February 2025 court proceedings.