Ukrainian Railways has acknowledged that it is «unlikely to be able» to ship large volumes of scrap in 2026

The company lacks the staff to ensure that assets subject to write-off are properly prepared for sale

Ukrainian Railways (UZ) plans to sell approximately 250,000 tons of scrap on the Prozorro.Sales platform in 2026. However, the company acknowledges that it is unlikely to be able to ship such a large volume of raw materials. This is stated in an article by RBC-Ukraine.

According to Tetyana Aksonenko, deputy director of Ukrainian Railways’ property policy department, the company currently has about 250,000 tons of scrap in storage. Each year, another 100,000 tons of raw materials are added. However, the company does not have enough employees to properly prepare the property for disposal.

“Next year, there will be up to 10,000 railcars to be written off. We understand that we physically have neither the people nor the capabilities to cut them up, so we are working on a mechanism for selling this rolling stock as scrap,” Aksonenko said, adding that in its best years, Ukrainian Railways was able to cut up 4,000 railcars per year.

She also noted that next year the company needs to sell about 250,000 tons of scrap (150,000 tons of stockpiles and 100,000 tons of new scrap) and acknowledged that the company is “unlikely to be able to cope” with such a volume. In general, the largest annual volume of scrap sales in the history of UZ was 152,000 tons in 2019-2020.

It should be noted that Ukrainian steel companies Interpipe and Metinvest plan to increase steel production in 2026 compared to 2025, which will increase demand for ferrous scrap, which is already in short supply on the domestic market.

Raw material supplies to enterprises are under threat, as neither scrap collection companies, nor decommissioned military equipment from the Ministry of Defense, nor supplies from Ukrainian Railways , which the government is proposing to balance the market, will be able to provide them.

To resolve this issue, in mid-November, the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture developed a draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers regulating the volume of quotas for the export and import of goods next year. The Ministry of Economy proposes to set the quota for scrap exports next year at zero, which will allow scarce raw materials to be retained within the country.