USAID buys 50 grain wagons for Ukraine's Nibulon

MOSCOW. July 21 (Interfax) - Nibulon, one of the largest players on Ukraine's grain market, will receive 50 Ukrainian-made wagon-hoppers purchased by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the project to provide economic support, Ukrainian media reported, citing the company's press service.

Each of the wagons can carry up to 70 tonnes of grain. The first 10 wagons have already been delivered and loaded with grain and being prepared for further transportation of agricultural products through the port of Izmail.

Nibulon raised 27 million euros from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark at the end of June to expand the capacity of its branch in Izmail. The company plans to use the money to build an elevator with capacity to store 118,500 tonnes of grain, and a flour mill with capacity of 750 tonnes per day. The project will make it possible to expand the branch's export throughput capacity to 300,000 tonnes per month.

The port of Izmail had fulfilled the annual plan for cargo transshipping as of May 9, having handled a record 6.187 million tonnes, Yury Litvin, head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, said earlier.

Izmail handled 8.89 million tonnes in 2022, up from 4 million tonnes in 2021.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Kubrakov forecast at the end of April that cargo transshipment at Ukrainian ports on the Danube could increase to 20 million tonnes in 2023 from 16 million tonnes in 2022, and could include 16-17 million tonnes could be agricultural produce.

Nibulon LLC JV was established in 1991. Until February 2022, Nibulon had 27 transshipment terminals and complexes for receiving agricultural crops, and capacity for simultaneously storing 2.25 million tonnes of agricultural products; owned a fleet of 83 ships, and the Nikolayev shipbuilding plant; cultivated 82,000 hectares of land in 12 regions of Ukraine; and exported agricultural products to more than 70 countries.