The USAID Economic Support for Ukraine Project has purchased 50 modern hopper cars, each of which can carry up to 70 tons of grain, for the needs of one of the largest grain market operators in Ukraine, JV Nibulon LLC (Mykolayiv), the company’s press service reported.
According to the press release, the wagons are manufactured at the experimental mechanical plant “Karpaty” (Lviv region). The first 10 wagons have already been delivered, loaded with grain and are being prepared for further transportation of agro-products through Izmail.
“In conditions when the Russian Federation is blocking the sea routes of agro-products export from Ukraine, and 12 river ports “Nibulon”, located on the Southern Bug and Dnieper, are blocked, we must do everything possible to save jobs in the river ports, left without water and cut off from the river stations from the nearest logistics. Loading on railcars for further exports through the ports of the Odessa region is now possible thanks to the USAID Economic Support for Ukraine project, under which new modern railcars were purchased,” said Mikhail Rizak, Director of Government Relations and Sustainability at Nibulon.
He expressed hope for further support of donors in terms of providing wagons for each blocked port and emphasized the importance of resuming these transportations.
According to his information, before the blockade, more than 15 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products were transported through the Dnieper and Southern Bug, 4 million tons of which were grains.
JV Nibulon LLC was established in 1991. Before the Russian military invasion, the grain trader had 27 transshipment terminals and complexes for receiving agricultural crops, capacity for one-time storage of 2.25 million tons of agricultural products, a fleet of 83 vessels (including 23 tugboats), and owned the Nikolaev shipyard.
“Nibulon” before the war cultivated 82 thousand hectares of land in 12 regions of Ukraine and exported agricultural products to more than 70 countries.
The grain trader exported the maximum 5.64 million tons of agricultural products in 2021, reaching record shipments to foreign markets in August – 0.7 million tons, in the fourth quarter – 1.88 million tons and in the second half of the year – 3.71 million tons.
Nibulon’s losses from the full-scale military invasion of the Russian Federation reached $400 mln. Currently, the grain trader is operating at 30% of its capacity, has created a special unit for demining agricultural land and has started production of the first vessel for demining international waterways at its shipyards in Mykolayiv.
The grain trader recently raised EUR27m from the Danish Export Investment Fund (EIFO) to increase the capacity of the Bessarabsky branch in Izmail, where an elevator and a flour mill will be built.
