Ukrainian Railways Mobilize Cars to Get Grain Cargoes to Ports

Ukraine’s state-managed railway company Ukrzaliznytsya will focus its available cars to help deliver grain cargoes to ports for export.

“Grain rail cars are now concentrated in transporting the 2011 grain harvest inside the country” after demand increased, the company said today in a statement on its website. Ukrzaliznytsya temporarily limited the availability of cars to carry other products outside Ukraine, according to the statement.

Ukraine’s grain exports fell 27 percent in January compared with the previous month, the Agrarian Confederation said Feb. 1. The decline was partially caused by decreasing availability of rail cars to deliver cereals to ports, the Confederation said. Ukrzaliznytsya has 11,579 grain cars, with about 1,000 operating outside Ukraine, the company said.

Grain producers and exporters were getting too few cars from Ukrzaliznytsya, Volodymyr Klymenko, head of the country’s Grain Association, said on Jan. 16.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net; Kateryna Choursina in Kiev at kchoursina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net; Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net