Potential of grain cargo shipment by river is 15.6 million tons per year

Ukraine's inland waterways have the potential of transporting 15.6 million tons of grain cargo per year. Currently, river transportation is significantly losing the competition to road and railroad transportation.

APK-Inform reports that the idea was expressed by Alexei Vadatursky, the general director at NIBULON, at the agro-logistics forum "Dnieper-Danube-Black Sea" in Nikolaev.

"River transport cannot compete with road and railway transport. It is the slowest and currently the most expensive type of transportation due to lacking dredging which limits the loading of the vessels to 65% only," said the general director at NIBULON.

In his opinion, systematic dredging of Ukrainian rivers and exemption of river shipments from taxation can reduce the cost of river transportations. Given the that the current cost of railway transportation is 208 UAH/t (including VAT), river shipments may become 25 UAH/t cheaper.

Reference: NIBULON completed the loading of watermelons on one of its barges and shipped the cargo in the direction of Kiev.