The Nibulon company (Nikolayev), one of the largest grain traders in Ukraine, has presented its project for dredging the Southern Bug River. The presentation took place on the premises of the Nikolayev Regional Administration at the beginning of September with the participation of the heads of local authorities and local self-government agencies, reports the Nikolayev Regional Chamber Of Commerce.
According to the report, Nibulon ordered depth soundings and an analysis of the geological structure of the rocks under the river. The depth soundings and geological analysis found that the depth of the river reaches only 1.6 meters in some areas. By comparison, the minimum depth at these areas of the river reached at least 2.8 meters at the end of the 1970s.
Andrii Volik, Nibulon’s deputy general director for shipping safety, presented the project for improving shipping conditions on the Southern Bug River from Voznesensk to Nikolayev. The project determined the dimensions of the shipping channel and its direction, as well as the volume of the work and the key segments of the river (Slivino-Matveevka, Kiryakovka, Kostiantynivka, Guryevka, Trikhaty, and Sapetnya-Morozovka).
The total volume of the dredging project is 1.187 million cubic meters of soil and the cost is UAH 70 million.
Nibulon has an affiliated transshipment terminal called Novoodesskaya (built in 2011) on the Southern Bug River. According to the report, the company has two other sites for construction of grain complexes – in the Voznesensk and Nikolayev districts – but the construction projects have been frozen because of the shallow waters along the river channel from Nikolayev to Voznesensk (a length of 102.2 kilometers).
According to the report, the cargo traffic on the Southern Bug River reached 1.1 million tons in 1991 before falling to 40,000 tons in 2001 and only 18,400 tons in 2012. The volume of passenger transportation was 1.1 million in 1991 but fell to 761,000 in 2001 and over 300,000 in 2012.
