After a year of planning and preparatory work, United Barge Company, Seven Ports and Stark Shipping, working together, carried out Ukraine’s first STS (Ship-to-Ship) operation for loading sunflower oil from the UBC Amosov river tanker to the SC Draco sea tanker in open sea, the area of ​​the external roadstead of the Nikolaev port (Bank of Trutaev).

Kernel acted as the customer, and the terminal, which loaded both the river and sea tanker, became TOV "Morskiy specializalizovaniy port Nika-Tera". Once again, Kernel company proves its strategic vision and often acts as a pioneer in many areas of maritime logistics, and the Morskiy Specialized Port of Nika-Tera TOV promotes undertakings.

This is the first operation of this kind in Ukrainian history. If grain refueling has long become commonplace, then this is a real breakthrough for oil. Requirements for STS operations by ship owners of the tanker fleet are an order of magnitude higher than when loading bulk carriers, which required considerable efforts to ensure the necessary level of safety for tankers to stand next to each other, including ensuring Yokohama Fenders, the safety of the loading process using specialized hoses and finding the Sigurd auxiliary vessel in close proximity throughout the entire process of reloading, and compliance with environmental safety standards.

After the SC Draco shipowner became convinced of the high level of competence of the companies participating in the loading consortium, permission for transhipment was obtained. SC Draco (DWT 40924 tons) was loaded in the port of Nika-Tera for a maximum draft of 10.3 m in BDLK, the amount of loaded cargo amounted to 33,200 tons of sunflower oil, after which it went to Bank Trutaev for additional loading. The United Barge UBC Amosov tanker delivered 2,600 tons of sunflower oil to the raid.

The transhipment operation took place on Sunday 03/05/2020, and in total, including all auxiliary processes, it took about a day. This made it possible to significantly reduce the freight costs of the entire ship and optimize logistics, avoiding the cost of calling at the second Ukrainian port.