Ukraine's Nibulon wants to acquire 250 grain wagons
MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax) - JV Nibulon LLC, one of the largest operators in the Ukrainian grain market, is expecting to purchase 250 grain wagons with the help of France, Ukrainian media reported, citing the company's director for interaction with government authorities, Mikhail Rizak, who received representatives from the French Embassy at the enterprise.
During the meeting with the representatives from France, the problem of Nibulon's fleet being blocked in Nikolaev and the need to unblock it to increase the export potential of the Danube were discussed, the Nibulon press service said on social media.
The evacuation of the fleet from the Nikolaev port hub will help reduce the price of freight on the Danube, which will reduce the cost of logistics by about $10 per tonne of cargo, Rizak said.
Rizak said that the logistics on the Danube organized by the company during the military operation on the territory of Ukraine played an important role for Ukrainian exports at a time when the deep-water ports of the Odessa region were not operating. Despite its high potential, currently the export route along the Danube is not used to the maximum, since it loses in margin to the deep-water ports of Odessa.
"Bessarabia is now more expensive in terms of rail and road delivery compared to deep-sea ports, since there are an additional 250 km of roads and 200 km of railway, which increase the cost of logistics," Rizak said.
Ukraine needs to level the situation by providing railway operator Ukraine Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) with special tariffs for its services for the delivery of agricultural products to the Danube ports, the holding said.
"If Ukraine had implemented the EU experience in compensating/abolishing the excise tax on fuel for coastal transportation, we would have saved the roads from trucks and today the Southern Bug and Dnieper would be navigable," Rizak said.
He asked French diplomats to bring in French companies to help the agricultural holding purchase 250 grain wagons.
JV Nibulon LLC was created in 1991. Previously, the grain trader owned 27 transshipment terminals and complexes for receiving agricultural crops, with simultaneous storage capacity of 2.25 million tonnes and a fleet of 83 ships. The company also owned the Nikolaev shipyard, processed 82,000 hectares of land, and exported agricultural products to over 70 countries. Currently, Nibulon is operating at approximately 30% of its capacity.