Agro-Region has reduced the cost of grain and oilseeds transportation by up to 30% by creating its own fleet of 40 grain carriers, the company’s press service reported on its Facebook page.
“As of today, 58 thousand tons of grains and oilseeds have been exported, with the balance for export of more than 60 thousand tons, including 30 thousand tons of corn and wheat,” said Oleksandr Tymoshenko, commercial director of the agricultural holding, adding that sunflower and rapeseed were the most profitable in the 2024 season due to higher prices than a year earlier.
Agro-Region pointed out that the main volumes of agricultural products are transported by rail and road to ports, and then the grain is exported by sea. Several factors contributed to the reduction in transportation costs, including the company’s own grain carrier fleet, which guarantees flexibility in planning and a fixed cost of transportation.
“Agro-Region received 25 hopper cars as part of the USAID Economic Support for Ukraine grant program. After that, it raised additional funds and invested them in an additional 15 railcars.
Agro-Region owns a land bank of 39 thousand hectares in Kyiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, and Khmelnytskyi regions. It specializes in crop production. It consists of 11 companies organized into four crop production clusters. It has two elevators – Boryspil elevator with a capacity of 73 thousand tons and Miropil elevator with a capacity of 52 thousand tons.
Agro-Region’s annual harvest of grains and oilseeds is up to 200 thousand tons.
In April 2021, the Swedish company Lobiu Sala AB, owned by the former Minister of Economy of Ukraine Aivaras Abromavičius, received permission from the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to buy the Swedish Agro Region Stockholm Holding, which manages the Agro-Region group of companies in Ukraine.
By the end of 2024, Ukrzaliznytsia’s branch, the Transport Logistics Center (TLC), will receive 120 units of new grain carriers of the 19-8005-U model, the center’s website reports.
“Grain carriers are designed to operate throughout the entire 1520 mm gauge railroad network and have the ability to be switched from 1520 mm gauge type 2 bogies to 1435 mm gauge bogies with screw ties and buffer devices, with a design speed of up to 120 km/h, which eliminates the need to connect coupling cars,” the Center for Transportation Logistics said.
According to the report, the grain carriers with a carrying capacity of 69.5 tons have a body volume of 104 cubic meters, size 02-VM, five loading and six unloading hatches.
IMC Agro Holding has formed its own fleet of 150 grain carriers and intends to double it by the end of the year.
According to the agricultural holding’s website, IMC purchased 140 railcars manufactured by Kryukiv Carriage Works, and another 10 grain cars manufactured by Karpaty DMZ were received from the USAID Economic Support for Ukraine project aimed at supporting export logistics and modernizing Ukraine’s border crossing points for efficient agricultural exports.
“The emergence of our own railcar fleet in our company is a significant event. As IMC is an export-oriented company, two of the three crops we grow (winter wheat and corn) are actually fully sold to foreign markets, and the optimal export sales channel for us is rail transportation to seaports with further transportation by sea to the end consumer. Accordingly, we need to transport an average of 60-70 thousand tons of grain to the ports by rail every month. Having its own railcar fleet will allow the agricultural holding to significantly save on the cost of rail logistics,” explained IMC CEO Oleksandr Verzhykhovsky.
According to him, IMC plans to add another 150 grain carriers to its railcar fleet by the end of 2024, so that next year up to 80% of the company’s grain will be exported using its own railcar fleet.
In early August, the agricultural holding sent grain from its elevators to ports in its own grain wagons for the first time, the company said.
“IMC is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments.
The Group’s land bank is about 120 thousand hectares, with storage capacity of 554 thousand tons and a 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In 2023, IMC posted a net loss of $21.03 million compared to $1.12 million a year earlier, and its EBITDA decreased 11.3 times to $3.22 million. The holding’s revenue increased by 22.3% to $139.45 million, while the share of exports decreased to 68% from 73% a year earlier.
Starting November 1, Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) will change the average speed of its own grain hoppers to increase their competitiveness in the freight market, Valery Tkachev, deputy director of UZ’s commercial operations department, said at a meeting with grain market participants on Thursday.
Thus, the following speeds will be applied to grain carriers moving towards port stations: 111 km/day for carload shipments (the current rate is 50 km/day), and 253 km/day for route shipments (against the current 138 km/day).
The movement of grain carriers towards the western border crossings will also accelerate. It will increase from 50 to 61 km/day for group shipments and from 50 to 187 km/day for route shipments.
The average speeds of grain carriers in domestic traffic and imports have been revised. For freight shipments, the figure will be 57 km/day compared to the current 50 km/day, and for route shipments – 128 km/day (currently 118 km/day).
These changes are expected to increase UZ’s competitive advantage in the grain transportation market.
JSC “Ukrzaliznytsia” announced Dutch auctions through “Prozorro.Sales” 300 grain carriers of the branch “Center of transport logistics” for the transportation of agricultural products to ports.
According to the message on the electronic trading platform, 40 lots of 5 wagons and 10 lots of 10 wagons in group shipments in the direction of ports (except for Izmail and Reni) are offered at the auction. The starting rate is 600 UAH/day and may decrease to 354 UAH/day.
Loading is possible in the period of October 19-31, 2023.
The auction is scheduled for October 13. Applications for participation in the auction are also accepted until October 13 inclusive.
Prometey Group has bought 5 new DAF grain trucks with Wielton semi-trailers, thanks to which its truck fleet has expanded to 45 units, follows from a press release from the grain trader on Friday.
It is specified that the next delivery of 10 tractors with semi-trailers will take place in the first ten days of October. In total, by the end of the year, the group of companies plans to increase the fleet of grain carriers to 100 units.
“An appropriate strategy for the development of transport logistics will become a competitive advantage and will reduce the group’s logistics costs. In addition, in connection with the war, the issue of mobility of any company is more than relevant. The Grain Corridor partially reoriented logistics routes leading to the western border of Ukraine to the south , but it cannot be said that this change will lead to a significant reduction in the need for trucks,” the grain trader specified in a press release.
As reported, in June Prometey announced its intention to expand its fleet of cargo grain carriers to 100 units by the end of 2022. Also in June, the grain trader signed an agreement with the state-owned Ukrgasbank to receive UAH 450 million in financing for a sowing campaign and trading activities in agricultural products.
In August, the group of companies received the first batch of 19 new MAN TGX tractors coupled with Wielton semi-trailers.
GC “Prometey” provides services for the storage, processing and logistics of grain and leguminous crops on the basis of 29 elevators in Mykolaiv, Kirovograd, Kyiv, Khmelnytsky, Zaporozhye, Sumy, Odessa, Kherson and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
At the end of 2021, the group of companies planned to receive $45 million in EBITDA, while in 2020 this figure reached $32.6 million, and in 2019 – $30.5 million.
