Ukrainian Railways increased iron ore transportation for export by 1.7% in July

In July 2023, Ukrainian Railways (UZO transported 1.45 million tons of iron and manganese ore in export traffic, which is 1.7% more than in the previous month. In the structure of export cargo transportation, iron ore took first place with an indicator of 44% of the total volume. This was announced during a meeting on export cargo transportation by the Deputy Director of UZ commercial work department Valeriy Tkachev.

According to him, the increase in transportation of iron ore is associated with a reduction in the volume of transportation of grain by rail due to the termination of the grain deal. In total, in January-July, UZ transported 10.1 million tons of iron and manganese ore in export traffic, which is 41.2% less than in the same period of 2022.

The volumes of transportation of ferrous metals in July decreased by 6.9% – to 352 thousand tons from 378 thousand tons in June. Over the seven months of this year, Ukrainian Railways reduced export shipments of steel products by 33.7% to 2.68 million tons.

As Valeriy Tkachev noted, Ukrainian Railways transported 3.316 million tons of various cargoes in July in export traffic. This is the worst indicator for the last year, which is associated with a decrease in the volume of grain transportation.

As GMK Center reported earlier, for the first half of the year 15.4% less cargo was transported in the export orientation compared to the same period – 28.2 million tons. Separately, in June, export traffic amounted to 4 million tons, which is 5.2% more than in May 2023 and immediately by 24.3% compared to the same period last year. About 30.7% of export transportation by rail accounted for iron and manganese ore and 8.2% – for steel products.

Also, in 2022, UZ reduced transportation of iron and manganese ore by 45.9 million tons, or by 59.2%, compared to 2021 – to 31.7 million tons. The volume of transportation of ferrous metals over the same period decreased by 57.8% – to 9, 2 million tons