In the first half of 2022, more than 9 million tons of grain cargoes were transported by rail. At the same time, grain exports increased from 416,000 tons per month in March to 805,000 tons in June. Within the upcoming 3-4 months, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to expand export capacity to 1.5 million tons of grain per month. For this purpose, UZ professionals analyze queues in detail, bring wagons to the border, digitize border crossings and terminals unloading processes. Also, the possibility of creating an Export Office of Ukrzaliznytsia is being considered to improve feedback from business and coordinate work with exporters.
Currently, the main difficulties are the lack of availability of the necessary number of wagons for European carriers, and the lack of terminals for transshipment at the border. According to the operations director of Ukrzaliznytsia Vyacheslav Eryomin, now Ukrzaliznytsia transports 2,000 wagons (130,000 tons of cargo) daily on the western routes, but the capacity of UZ allows to transport 3,400 wagons (220,000 tons of cargo) per day. For this, it is necessary to increase the capacity of the European infrastructure, in which the share of railway transportation in the structure of the transport system is 15-35%, for comparison, now in Ukraine this indicator reaches 65%.
In July, queues of wagons in the western direction were reduced, especially in the direction of Poland. In addition, the average daily delivery of goods through railway junctions increased by 18 wagons compared to last month. The development and acceleration of railway transportation is currently one of the priorities of the transport system, to ensure new export routes for Ukrainian business, which must reconfigure the logistics chain in view of the military aggression of the russian federation against Ukraine.
Recently, as a result of successful Ukrainian military operations, it was possible to restore the sea transport route for ships from Danube to the ports of Odessa. Thus, as of July 12, already eight foreign trade ships entered the ports of Odesa region. This is only partially helping to resolve the issue of much-needed grain supplies for the UN World Food Program to fight the global crisis, because the operation of most ports is still impossible.
That is why, in connection with the blockade of ports, Ukrainian business is switching to railway transportation, to ensure such volumes, UZ is constantly working to increase the capacity of routes and rolling stock.
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