Ukraine can annually ship nearly 15.6 mln tonnes of grains by river transport — Nibulon

To date, the potential of river transportation of grain cargoes by the inland waterways of Ukraine totals nearly 15.6 mln tonnes per year. At the same time, it cannot be fully realized, because the river transport is losing in the competition with the road and railway transport, declared the General Director of Nibulon LLC, Oleksiy Vadaturskyy during his report at the agro-logistics forum “Dnieper-Danube-Black Sea” in Mykolaiv on August 22.

According to him, the river transportation is still noncompetitive to the motor and railway transport. To date, it is the slowest type of transport, due to the absence of dredging improvements, and in terms of vessel loading not more than 65%, therefore river transportation turns out to be more expensive than the rail type. But if the country starts systematically realizing the dredging works of the Ukrainian rivers, and exempts the river transportation from taxation, then in terms of the current cost of railway transportation at 208 UAH/t (including of VAT), the cost of river transportation will become lower by 25 UAH/t, said the General Director of Nibulon.

At the same time, O.Vadaturskyy stressed that development of the river logistics is physically necessary for Ukraine, because in the current economic conditions the authorities can not further support PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways) and work for its profitability production.

The depth of the Dnieper should reach 3.65 m, but in fact to date it totals 2.9 m, and sometimes in the direction of Belarus it reaches 0.6 m. It is critical for the country to realize the dredging works, but the authorities still failed to provide any real works, although previously at different times the Presidents of Ukraine signed two memorandum for dredging of the Dnieper, explained the speaker.

O.Vadaturskyy added that to date, the river fleet is actually moved outside the territory of Ukraine, and there are no significant capacities in the country. In the period of 1990-2013, the number of Ukrainian river fleet declined from 29.2 thsd units to 635 units only. As of 2018, the number of dry cargo vessels and barges in Ukraine totaled 447 units, including 42 owned by Nibulon LLC, he said. At the same, by 2020 the figures will increase to 1288 units, said O.Vadaturskyy.

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