The Interpipe pipe and wheel holding company has begun building an additional shop for production of wheelsets. The European Union and the United States will be the main markets for the products that manufactured in the new shop.
Interpipe’s Director for Economics and Finance Denis Morozov announced this in an interview with the Ukrainian News agency, the CFTS portal reports.
“We have begun a project aimed at increasing production of wheelsets. We want to build an additional shop for producing them. Wheelsets are assembled onsite in Ukraine or Russia, but in Europe and America, they buy wheelsets and not wheels. We want to increase production of this product," he said.
In addition, according to Morozov, Interpipe has invested USD 15 million in a new finishing line that will allow the company to increase production of railway wheels for the passenger segment.
“We will have a new product that we have not manufactured before. We are the leader in the freight segment, with about 60% of freight cars in Europe equipped with Interpipe wheels, i.e. two out of three freight cars in Europe are equipped with our wheels. Our task now is to enter the passenger segment, where we had 2%. We are ready to launch this line today," Morozov said.
As reported, the company built and launched operation of a new warehouse at its wheel-rolling shop’s export site in spring this year, investing USD 271,000 into the project. The new storage facility was built to reduce the cost of packaging railway wheels for export.
Interpipe shipped the first batch of wheelsets it developed for the Spanish market in December 2019. The wheelsets were designed for use on freight wagons. In addition to modifying the wheel itself, specialists at Interpipe’s railway products division also designed an Sp G axle for Spain’s track gauge.
