Ukrainian Railways reduced containerized cargo transportation by 18% y/y in 1H2025

In January-June 2025, Ukrainian Railways JSC (UZ) reduced the volume of cargo transportation in containers by 18% compared to the same period in 2024 – to 114.79 thousand TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units). This was announced by Valery Tkachev, Deputy Director of the Commercial Department of UZ.

The structure of transportation by type of traffic/destinations is as follows:

• export – 71.78 thousand TEU (63% of the total cargo turnover in containers);
• import – 29.36 thousand TEU (25%);
• domestic – 13.65 thousand TEU (12%);
• transit – 0 TEU (0%).

The leader among the cargoes in terms of containerized cargo volumes is grain (29% of the total volume of transportation) – 32.89 thousand TEU. Ferrous metals accounted for 21% of transportation or 23.61 thousand TEU, oil cake – 11.18 thousand TEU (10%), and oil – 9 thousand TEU (8%).

In the first half of 2025, intermodal transportation in Ukraine underwent changes: the share of grain in containers decreased by 10% to 29% due to cheaper use of grain cars and the reorientation of exports to seaports. The share of fitting platforms used by the Liski branch also decreased to 15%, despite measures to increase transportation, including long-term contracts, the launch of interterminal logistics and tariff revisions.

As GMK Center reported earlier, UZ increased intermodal container transportation within Ukraine by 28% in 2024 compared to 2023, up to 258.18 thousand TEUs. The main cargo mix in 2024 was as follows: grain cargo – 46% to 101.8 thousand TEUs (+17.9% y/y), ferrous metals – 20% to 43.04 thousand TEUs (+42.3%).