Summary:
On February 24th, 2022 Russia initiated a military invasion of Ukraine and has suspended shipping in Ukraine ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov until further notice. The Agency for Maritime and River Transport (Rosmorrechflot), stated that this decision has followed Russia’s move to launch military operations in the Donbas region of Ukraine.
Using satellite data from a variety of providers, Skytek is able to monitor the marine hull trapped in the closed ports of Ukraine, as well as the surrounding cities and port properties, which have been subjected to missile attacks. We use these data, together with our expertise, to generate assessment reports covering the condition of the assets of interest, indicating and quantifying the potential claim associated with their losses, and providing intelligence and real-time information that is vital for decision-making.
PORT OF ILLICHEVSK (CHERNOMORSK), UKRAINE
On February 24th more than 20 merchant ships were moored along the jetties of Illichevsk port. Since then, no merchant vessel was able to leave the port, and Skytek used very-high resolution imagery to regularly monitor the condition of the vessels alongside, as well as the port equipment nearby. The modelled price of the marine hull in the port of Illichevsk currently exceeds $120 million.
Using this technology, Skytek can produce detailed individual ship condition reports that can assist the insurer to identify and quantify actual or potential future claims.
While analysing the recent images of the port of Illichevsk , Skytek identified all the blue water ships in the port, as shown in Figure 1 (north part) and Figure 2 (south part).
PORT OF MARIUPOL, UKRAINE
Six merchant ships were moored at this port on February 24th, 2022. These vessels were not able to depart from Mariupol and, to date, are still trapped in this port.
Using very-high resolution satellite imagery, Skytek tracks the condition of the ships and the port equipment (jetties, cranes, warehouses, silos), being able to mark the damages associated with the repeated bombing in the port of Mariupol.
In Figure 3 (rotated to allow better visualisation of the assets), Skytek captures the ships moored in the port as of June 4th, 2022. It is noted that since February 24th, 2022, some of the ships have shifted the jetty (for example, Azburg, Azov Concord and Tzarevna have shifted from jetties 17, 16 and 10, to jetties 10, 13 and 06 respectively), but did not depart from the port.
In Figure 4 below, using the most recent satellite image tasked and acquired over the area, Skytek is able to mark several other bombing signs in the port, affecting warehouses, oil storage tanks, silos and other port infrastructure.
It is worth noting that the Ukrainian navy command ship Donbass, which can currently be seen as sunk in the shallow waters near the jetty, was in fact already sinking as of April 7th, 2022, as identified during a previous analysis exercise that Skytek performed over this area. It is believed that this navy ship was hit by a missile around that period.
