11:40 25.10.2017

Ukrzaliznytsia seeks to build near 4,200 freight cars at own production facilities in 2018

3 min read
Ukrzaliznytsia seeks to build near 4,200 freight cars at own production facilities in 2018

Public joint-stock company Ukrzaliznytsia in 2018 seeks to build 4,000 gondola cars and around 200 fitting platforms at own production facilities – Paniutyne, Stryi and Darnytsia car repair plants.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that Head of the car department at Ukrzaliznytsia Oleh Motin gave the information at the international conference "Car Building & Rolling Stock Repair in Ukraine" in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Commenting on building of cars this year, he said that today 1,676 gondola cars were built at own production facilities, and 800 or 900 more cars will be built by the end of this year.

Ukrzaliznytsia's enterprises started producing 360 gondola cars a month, he said.

Motin also said that in 2018, it is planned to buy 700 grain carriers. In general, the grain carrier fleet today is over 5,000. Around 900 cars were built this year.

Some 2,500-3,000 gondola cars will be bought using funds from the increase of freight tariffs in 2018.

In addition, it is planned to buy 6,000-6,500 gondola cars using a loan of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). First contracts will be started implemented in H2 2018.

Earlier, in May 2017, Motin told Interfax-Ukraine that the factories that are branches of PJSC Ukrzaliznytsia are increasing the pace of building of gondola cars. For example, Darnytsia car repair plant has materials to build almost 1,000 freight cars before the end of 2017.

"It's quite realistic to build 3,000 freight cars at our own plants by the end of 2017, since the annual capacity of these enterprises is 4,500 cars. Now the construction is revitalized not only in the Darnytsia car repair plant, but also in Paniutine and Stryi plants," he said.

Speaking at the conference about the problems of buying gondola cars from Ukrainian car-builders, Motin recalled that this year not a single car was bought (in 2016 - 650 units), since tenders for 2,500 gondola cars did not take place over permanent appeals.

"There is a hope that still another tender will be success for 250 gondola cars. However, there is also a claim filed to the business court, and there is no understanding whether we see Ukrainian gondola cars. According to the results of hearing the claim, we will see whether we conduct tender this year, or in 2018," he said.

Motin said that for today the Ukrzaliznytsia's fleet of freight cars is 103,500 units, private companies have 65,500 units.

At the same time, he said, about 30,000 cars remained in the uncontrolled territory - in Crimea and the ATO zone, including 21,000 of Ukrzalinytsia cars (including 16,000 gondola cars).

"If 45,000 is an Ukrzaliznytsia's fleet of gondola cars, then the third part of it was left in the uncontrolled territory, while 66% of cargo is transported by gondola cars," he said.

According to him, Ukrzaliznytsia had some difficulties at the beginning of the year with suppliers of raw materials and components for cars.

"We lost time negotiating with them, but thanks to the successful negotiations we can already see that the Kremenchuk Steel Works, the producer of car casting, has started operating at full capacity. Azovelektrostal started operating two months ago and began shipping products for us. Now it is reaching its full capacity. The manufacturer of all-rolled wheels Interpipe started operating at its full capacity too. Last month the manufacturer of the brake equipment FED launched its operations and we have already received a first batch," Motin said.

He said that all enterprises in Ukraine have already built 4,022 cars since the beginning of the year, whereas in 2016 1,771 cars were built.

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