Thursday, October 29, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 29, 2026 · 8 min read

Sea drones hit a container ship off Bulgaria

Three sea drones hit a Constanta-bound box ship off Bulgaria. On Wednesday, three naval drones hit a container ship carrying 421 boxes from Haifa to Constanta. It was about 21 miles south-east of Shabla, inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. All 18 crew got off safely. A security source said the ship was badly damaged and listing. Our view: the western Black Sea is now a war zone for container cargo, not just grain. Reuters counts at least six merchant ships attacked off Bulgaria. Our call: at least one major carrier will add a war-risk surcharge on Romanian or Bulgarian bookings by 30 November.

Constanta’s container lane is now inside the drone war

On Wednesday 28 October, three naval drones hit a container ship carrying 421 boxes off Bulgaria’s coast. The ship was sailing from Haifa in Israel to Constanta in Romania. Bulgaria’s defence minister, Dimitar Stoyanov, said: “A container ship was hit…with three naval drones, approximately 21 miles southeast of Shabla.” Shabla is near Bulgaria’s northern border with Romania, so the ship was close to the end of its voyage.

The ship flies the Liberian flag and is managed by Greece’s Contships Management, which confirmed the attack. Its name was not given. All 18 crew, 14 Filipino and 4 Ukrainian, were taken off and are safe ashore, a company official said. A maritime security source told Reuters the ship “had been badly damaged and was listing”. What was in the 421 containers has not been made public. Nobody has claimed the attack.

Our view is simple. The Black Sea drone war has reached the container trade on the western route. Until now, the ships named as hit off Bulgaria and Romania this autumn were bulk and general cargo ships, some carrying grain, corn and metal. This one carried boxes for Romania’s Black Sea container port. Forwarders who treated Constanta as the safe side of the Black Sea need to stop doing that.

What happened on Wednesday

The strike took place inside Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. That is the sea area, up to 200 nautical miles out, where a country controls fishing and resources. It is not territorial waters, so it is open to all shipping. But Bulgaria is a NATO and EU member, and these are its waters in all but the strict legal sense.

Bulgaria’s transport ministry sent four naval and police boats to help, according to the Reuters report carried by Baird Maritime. The crew evacuation worked. Nobody was hurt. That is the good news, and it should not hide the bad news. A listing ship with 421 containers on board, 21 miles off the coast, is a salvage job, a cargo claim and a delivery delay for every consignee on that manifest.

Ukraine has blamed Russia for the run of attacks off Bulgaria. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said the attacks appear to benefit Russia, according to the same Reuters report. Moscow has denied involvement. Turkey’s defence minister, Yasar Guler, warned both Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday against attacking commercial ships in the Black Sea.

Not the first ship hit

The reason this matters is the pattern. Reuters reports that at least six merchant ships have been attacked off Bulgaria. It also reports that drone attacks there have likely killed “some two dozen international seafarers in recent weeks”, based on government statements about missing crew.

Some of those incidents are on the record. Insurance Business reported on 6 October that the Togo-flagged general cargo ship Alfa Watan sank off Bulgaria with its crew missing. The Palau-flagged Able, carrying wheat with 18 crew aboard, caught fire in the same attacks. Two of its crew were seriously injured and flown to hospital in Varna. A day earlier the Turkish-owned Royad Mammadov sank in Romania’s EEZ while carrying Ukrainian corn. Two people died.

Then, on 23 October, the Comoros-flagged Khoryv was hit about 13 nautical miles off Constanta itself and capsized. It was carrying ferrous metals from Ereğli in Turkey to Sulina in Romania, Marine Insight reported. Of its 13 crew, one died and three were missing, according to Romania Insider. Romania’s president, Nicușor Dan, said: “This attack is another example of the tragic consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

So in roughly four weeks, ships have gone down off both NATO coasts on the western Black Sea. The targets have moved from bulk carriers on Ukrainian grain runs towards ships calling at Romanian ports. Wednesday’s ship was not going to Ukraine at all. It was going from Israel to Romania.

What insurers have already done

Shipping insurance moved before Wednesday. On 16 September the Joint War Committee widened its Black Sea listed area, according to Beinsure. The Joint War Committee is a group of London marine insurers that marks zones where war risk is high. Insurance Business reported that the listed area now covers the whole sea, except the 12-mile territorial waters of Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania and Turkey.

When an area is listed, owners must tell their war-risk insurers before going in, and insurers can demand an extra premium for the trip. Insurance Business said that cover is priced ship by ship, by route and by current risk. It did not publish a rate.

For a sense of scale, look at January. Marine Insight, citing Reuters, reported that war-risk rates for ships calling at Black Sea ports had risen to around 1% of a ship’s value, up from 0.6% to 0.8% in late December. That was after drone attacks on tankers heading for a Russian oil terminal. Insurers were also reviewing cover every 24 hours rather than every 48. Our illustration: on a ship worth, say, $30 million, 1% would be $300,000 for a single call. That cost does not stay with the owner.

Bulgaria’s own prime minister saw this coming. In early October, Insurance Business reported Radev saying the disruption was pushing insurance costs up and making Black Sea navigation extremely difficult. Wednesday’s strike, on a container ship in his country’s EEZ, makes that harder to argue with.

We do not have a published war-risk rate for Romanian or Bulgarian calls this week. Any figure you hear should be checked against your carrier’s actual notice.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

Start with cost. War-risk premiums are paid by shipowners, but container lines pass them on through surcharges. Those can appear with little notice. If your contracts allow emergency surcharges, assume they will be used. Check your rate agreements for Constanta, Varna and Burgas now, not after the notice lands.

Next, cargo claims. Shippers whose boxes are on Wednesday’s ship face delay and possible damage. If the ship is towed to port or the owner calls general average, cargo owners may have to pay a share of salvage costs before they get their goods back. General average is an old maritime rule: when a ship is saved, everyone with cargo on board shares the cost. Shippers without cargo insurance should be told what that means today. Forwarders should check which of their clients had boxes on the Haifa to Constanta service.

Then, routing. Constanta matters well beyond Romania. Its container terminals, run by DP World and SOCEP, handle transit cargo for Ukraine, Maritime Executive reported in 2024. If Black Sea calls get pricier or slower, some of that freight will look for other gateways. The obvious ones are Adriatic ports such as Koper in Slovenia and Rijeka in Croatia, and Aegean ports such as Thessaloniki or Piraeus, with rail or truck to finish the trip. Each of those adds inland cost and transit time. None of them has unlimited spare rail capacity.

Then, schedules. Feeder ships, the smaller vessels that carry boxes from big hubs in Turkey, Greece or Egypt into the Black Sea, are the most exposed. Their owners are smaller and more sensitive to insurance costs. Watch for skipped calls or longer gaps between sailings. A service that drops Constanta for even two weeks leaves import cargo sitting at the hub.

Finally, crew. Seafarers are being killed. Crewing agencies and unions respond to that. When ships struggle to find crew for a route, sailings slip.

What to watch this week

Three things will tell you how fast costs move. First, carrier customer notices. Surcharges on a war-risk route usually arrive as a short advisory with an effective date, sometimes only days away. Second, the fate of Wednesday’s ship. If it is towed in and unloaded at a Bulgarian or Romanian port, that is a delay. If it sinks, 421 containers become an insurance claim. Third, any move by NATO or the Romanian and Bulgarian navies to escort or patrol merchant traffic. Talk of escorts would calm insurers. Silence will not.

For clients, the honest message is this. Constanta is still Romania’s Black Sea box gateway. But the risk on the sea leg is now real, it is priced daily, and it can change with one more strike. Quote with a validity of days, not weeks, and put any war-risk surcharge on the quote as a separate line so nobody is surprised.

Our call

Our prediction: by 30 November, at least one of the ten biggest container lines will announce a war-risk or emergency surcharge on bookings to Constanta, Varna or Burgas. We also expect at least one feeder service to skip or suspend a western Black Sea call in the same window.

We could be wrong if the attacks stop quickly, or if NATO naval escorts begin and insurers ease up. Nothing announced so far points that way. Turkey’s defence minister used Wednesday to warn both sides, not to promise protection. Until something changes at sea, forwarders should price Romanian and Bulgarian calls as war-zone calls.

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