According to information received from the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport, Turkey has increased the transit fees through the Straits 5 times. The Ministry of Transport said that they have not received any official information about the increase in the fees, but that the Turkish authorities have asked for 5 times more fees from the Bulgarian flagged ships and that they have asked for an explanation from Turkey through official channels, but they have not received an answer yet.
Author’s Comment:
After the price update in 1983, Turkey set the passing fee at 1 Gold Franc = 0.8063 dollars per net ship tonnage. Turkey has the right to collect a passing fee given the Convention on the regime of straits of July 20, 1936 (Montreux Convention).
As of October 7, 2022, the fee has been quintupled by Turkish authorities to 4.08 US dollars.
For example, the net tonnage of the first grain-carrying ship Razoni is 9426. Total fee that Razoni must pay to Turkish authorities for the passage is 14806.36 US dollars. This ship carried 26527 tons of corn. 1 ton of corn cost 680 US dollars. So the value of the ship’s cargo is 18.038.360 dollars. And besides 18 million dollars, about 15,000 dollars is quite a small amount of money.
Detailed view of the fees relating the passage from Turkish Straits is below:
For sanitary inspection stations, 0.075 gold francs, i.e. 0.306 dollars per net ship tonnage.
Per net ship tonnage for lighthouse and buoy services
– 0.42 gold francs, i.e. 1.7136 dollars, for ships up to 800 tons.
– 0.21 gold francs, i.e. 0.8568 dollars, for ships over 800 tons.
For other services, 0.1 gold francs or 0.408 dollars.
Normally 1 Gold Franc equals to 0,2903 grams of 24 Karat Gold. Given that 1 gram of 24 Karat Gold cost 55 US dollars, 1 Gold Franc (the fee per net ship tonnage) should be 16 dollars instead of about 4 dollars.
Calculation: 1 Gold Franc = (0.2903 X 1 gram of 24 karat gold) = 0.2903 x 55 dollars = 16 dollars.
