Ukrainian Railways failed to sell 8.5 thousand tons of scrap worth UAH 62.3 million

A series of auctions did not take place due to an insufficient number of participants

Ukrainian Railways (UZ) failed to hold a series of auctions for the sale of ferrous scrap metal on the Prozorro.Sales platform, scheduled for June 23, 2025. In total, 8.5 thousand tons of raw materials with a total starting price of UAH 62.27 million were offered for sale.

There were 21 lots up for auction, which will be re-listed. The average cost per ton of raw materials was UAH 7,220/t, while depending on the lot, the cost ranged from UAH 5,320/t to UAH 7,600/t. The types of scrap included 3 (railway wheel axles, carriage parts), 4 (engine parts), 312 (springs), 9 (other scrap), 10 (shavings), 1 (carriage body parts), and 316.

The auctions could not be held due to an insufficient number of participants. UZ is trying to hold these auctions for the second time, but participants are not encouraged to participate, probably due to the inflated price. In particular, the last auction in 2023, after which there was a long break in trading on the part of UZ, took place at a price of 5.1-6.5 thousand UAH/t (6.35 thousand UAH/t on average from 53 lots). Thus, the most valuable type of scrap (Type 3) has risen in price by more than 2 thousand UAH/t. At the same time, prices at scrap metal collection centers as of June 2025 range from 3.5 thousand UAH/t to 6 thousand UAH/t.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Ukrainian Railways resumed scrap trading on May 16 this year. Prior to that, raw materials had not been sold since September 2023. In the first nine months of that year, the railway operator sold only 76.4 thousand tons of scrap, while in 2022, it sold 113 thousand tons out of the planned 170 thousand tons.

Since then, the railway operator has held two series of auctions, trying to sell 12 thousand tons of raw materials for UAH 87.3 million. The first attempt was unsuccessful, but during the second auction, 7 out of 33 auctions were successfully held. Thus, UZ sold 1.66 thousand tons of scrap metal for UAH 12.96 million. The starting price increased by UAH 1.1 million.

Auctions were also held on June 20 – 5,900 tons for UAH 41.71 million – but the attempt was unsuccessful. The railway operator sold only one lot of raw materials out of 15. Ukrpobutbrukt LLC purchased 300 tons of scrap metal for UAH 2.58 million. The protocol is currently pending.

It should be noted that the Cabinet of Ministers recently simplified the procedure for disposing of property for Ukrainian Railways JSC, according to which the company can independently, without government approval, make decisions on the disposal of property if its book value does not exceed UAH 500 million.

It is expected that thanks to this decision, Ukrainian Railways will be able to obtain more than 218,600 tons of ferrous metal scrap (worth UAH 1.6 billion) and 3,800 tons of non-ferrous metal and alloy scrap (worth UAH 233.4 million).