ASK Ukrrichflot : Growth of cargo flows on the river - there is a prospect!

In April 2017, the II International Conference 'Freight Traffic on the Dnipro River' was held. The participants of the event addressed the issues of transport infrastructure development on the Dnipro, discussed the economics of river traffic and summarized the experience and prospects for the growth of cargo flows on the river.

JSSC Ukrrichflot, the largest river logistics company in Ukraine, presented an expert analysis of the river transportation market and shared its own well-established and efficient logistic schemes on the Dnipro. The speaker of the company Vitalii Jenkov, a leading specialist of the Commercial Department, gave statistics on the river freight traffic in his presentation, 'Prospects for the Development of River Transport'. He noted that in 2016 about 7 million tons of cargo were transported, while the total cargo base for the Dnipro River is currently estimated at about 60 million tons. This figure is calculated on the basis of real cargos, which are now located near regions of the Dnipro River and are generated annually. Most of them belong to the agrarian and mining and metallurgical sectors, as well as the construction industry. Ukrrichflot focuses on the development of container and coastal shipping of grain and derivative agricultural products.

Two years ago, the Company introduced a regular container service on the Dnipro/Zaporizhzhia section - the Ports of the Greater Odesa. Since April 2017, a new container ship, Dnipro Line, registered under the Ukrainian flag, has been operating on the line.

The company constantly develops the container business area, optimizing the efficiency of transportation and transshipment. Ukrrichflot cooperates with the sea lines in terms of integrating coastal service into the global services of the largest container carriers.

The following are a few more effective logistics models on the Dnipro used by the Company:

- direct delivery of cargo for export/import from river ports without additional transshipment;

- complex logistics with transshipment/additional loading at the mouth of the river;

- cabotage of agro and GMK cargoes to/from seaports;

- transportation of oversized cargo.

The company is confident that the existing cargo base of the river in conjunction with positive growth dynamics suggests an optimistic perspective for the future of the river industry. The main thing is to continue the purposeful work on the restoration of cargo transportation along the Dnipro and the development of the river infrastructure.