Black Sea Shipping Company


Black Sea Shipping Company is a Ukrainian shipping company based in Odessa.
During Soviet rule, the company held the title of world's largest shipping company for several years and was instrumental in important foreign trade and international aid initiatives of the Soviet government.
In February 2009, it was declared bankrupt by the Higher Commercial Court of Ukraine. The State Property Fund of Ukraine decided in January 2017 to sell the company at auction.

History

The company can trace its history to May 16, 1833 when the Black Sea Society of Steamships was established as means of permanent communications between Odessa and Istanbul, but the company disappeared after the Crimean War of the 1850s. The company was re-established on June 13, 1922 as Black Sea - Azov Sea Shipping by the Council of Labour and Defence as part of the People's Commissariat of Communication Routes and administrated by the Central Administration of State Merchant Fleet. The Black Sea - Azov Sea Shipping company split into Black Sea Shipping Company, Azov Sea Shipping Company and Georgian Shipping Company after World War II. Another split took place in 1964 when a new company, Novorossiysk Shipping Company, was created from the tanker division of the Black Sea Shipping Company.
Azov Sea region management of Black Sea Shipping Company was created in Zhdanov in 1953. Azov Sea region management was reorganized in Azov Sea Shipping Company in 1967. It is why some ships of Black Sea Shipping Company ships were handed over changed to Azov Sea Shipping Company and home port was changed from Odessa to Zhdanov. So, two sister ships Nezhin and Smela were transferred to Azov Sea Shipping Company in 1969 or in 1967.
In 1990 Black Sea Shipping was the biggest one in Europe among other shipping companies and the second in whole world. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the company was passed from the Ministry of Sea Fleet of the USSR as a state company of Ukraine and later registered with the Fund of State Property of Ukraine.
On August 13, 1993 President Leonid Kravchuk issued the Decree #303, creating the state conglomeration "Blasko" based on "Black Sea Shipping Company". The Decree was canceled in January 1995.
Speaking in 2013, Leonid Kravchuk accepted his blame for decisions leading to ruining of the "Black Sea Shipping Company".

Leaders of the Black Sea Shipping Company

Black Sea Shipping company was the biggest company in the world in the 1980s as per quantity of sea-going vessels. The company had more than 250 sea-going ship during the best times.

Ports and harbours of operation

During the Soviet Union period and after the creation of the Novorossiysk Sea Shipping Company all of the large ports on the present Ukrainian territory except Sevastopol, Asov Sea ports, Kerch port and Danube river ports were owned and administrated by the Black Sea Shipping Company. After the collapse of the Soviet Union these ports separated from the shipping company.
Ports of Black Sea Shipping Co. during Soviet Union period:
Before the creation of the Novorossiysk Sea Shipping Company the Black Sea Shipping Company also included all ports of Novorossiysk Sea Shipping Company on the east coast of the Black Sea:
The main port was Odessa during all times. And most of tonnage of cargо passed via Constellation of the Black Sea basin - Odessa, Chornomorsk, Yuzhne ports.
Sevastopol was not a Black Sea Shipping Co. port. It was a naval port of Soviet Union in Black Sea.

Ships of Black Sea Shipping Company

List of ships

List of current ships
  1. Aleksandr Lebed
  1. Catharine
  2. Chalsi
  3. Vasiliy Tatischev
  1. Chelsea-1
  2. Chelsea-2
  3. Chelsea-3
  4. Chelsea-4
  5. Chelsea-5
  6. Chelsea-6
  7. Chelsea-7
  1. Stryzh

    List of ships used with Saluta Shipping

In association with Kama Shipping
  1. Corvus
  2. Evgenia Z
  3. Nikolay Meshkov

    List of former ships

During the best period of this company, which was the 1970s to the first part of the 1980s, it had more than 250 sea going ships. The company had the following ships, :

Passengers ships

  1. Admiral Nakhimov
  2. Admiral Ushakov
  3. Rossia
  4. Pobeda
  5. Ukraina
  1. Pyotr Velikiy, previously Polish
  1. MS Shota Rustaveli
  2. MS Ivan Franko
  1. MS Belorussiya
  2. MS Gruziya
  3. Azeibarzhan

    Cargo ships

  4. Коммунист, ex. UK ship Regimen. From 14.01.1942 the ship was included in Black Sea Naval Force fleet and was lost on 24.02.1942, due to World War II.
  5. Передовик . The ship was built in the Soviet Union in 1939, transferred in 1951 to the Far East Shipping Company.
  1. Белоруссия
  2. Восток
  3. Лермонтов
  4. Плеханов
  5. Тарас Шевченко
  6. Вторая Пятилетка
  7. Иркутск
  8. Караганда. This ship was used on the line between Black Sea Soviet ports and India ports.
  9. Кавказ
  10. Омск
  11. Аргунь, ex. US ship West Modus from 1919 to 1942,.
  1. Nezhin
  2. Smela
  1. SS Divnogorsk
  2. SS Mednogorsk
  1. SS Leninsky Komsomol
  2. SS Metallurg Baykov
  3. SS Fizik Kurchatov
  4. SS Metallurg Anosov
  5. SS Bratstvo
  6. and others
  1. Slanyansk
  2. Sarny
  1. Алатау
  2. Авача
  3. Бештау
  4. Дарьял,ех. George Whitefield which was built at the "Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation" shipyard in 1943 and sold to Norway in 1947 and changed name to Wilford, then sold to Italy in 1957 and changed name to Orata. The ship was purchased by Soviet Union in 1963 and scrapped in 1977.
  5. Карпаты
  6. Хибины
  7. Машук
  8. Саяны
  9. Сихотэ-Алинь
  10. Малахов Курган
  1. Fridrikh Engels
  2. Rosa Luksemburg
  3. Ernst Telman , IMO 7023269
  4. Toyvo Antikaynen