For the first time, the Ukrainian industrial group Interpipe has begun operating a vessel under a time charter agreement.
Oleksii Yanovskyi, the company's director of procurement and logistics, stated this in comments to the CFTS portal.
Asked whether Interpipe had considered the possibility of creating its own fleet, particularly the possibility of purchasing its own vessels, he replied: "Interpipe has not only considered it, but is already using its own vessels instead of the traditional charter services. However, we do not consider it appropriate to purchase our own vessels. Instead, this year, for the first time in its history, Interpipe has time-chartered a vessel for operations in the Black Sea."
Yanovskyi did not specify the name and size of the vessel. However, he noted that it is currently making feeder deliveries from Odesa to the Port of Varna and delivering products to the Georgian port of Poti, from where they are delivered to the company's customers in the CIS countries, particularly in Central Asia.
Earlier, in an interview with the CFTS portal, the director of Interpipe's Railway Products Division, Oleksandr Harkavyi, discussed the challenges of supplying products because of the war and changes in logistics to markets such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. That is why the company was interested in restoring the maritime link with the port of Poti. "This logistics scheme provides for the absence of transshipment in the delivery of our products to customers in the South Caucasus and Central Asian markets, thereby reducing the risk of damage to our products," said Yevhen Anikin, head of Interpipe's logistics department.
