The Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company (Izmail, Odessa region), together with the leadership of the Administration of Seaports of Ukraine and the Izmail port, intends to fight to return to the Danube cargoes of ore pellets from the Poltava ore mining plant and cargoes of steel slabs from the Alchevsk steel plant. This was announced by the shipping company’s acting Board Chairman Dmytro Barinov, the press service of the shipping company said.
Barinov said that the shipping company was ready to lower its cargo handling rates for these types of goods. However, he stressed that the root of the problem is political. "These positions are related to the economic, political, and now even the military situation in Ukraine. It happens that the main production facilities are concentrated in the east of Ukraine, but fighting is currently taking place there, and, of course, this cannot but affect the work of the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company and the Izmail port," said Barinov.
Among a number of other pressing problems, Barinov named optimization of the internal structure of the enterprise, final repayment of its foreign-currency debt to some sailors for the period of 2009-2011, and resolution of the issue of incompletion of the Captain Stolbovsky motor ship. Construction of this vessel began in 2004 at the Kilia shipyard, which is a unit of the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company. The government allocated UAH 32 million for this project in the period of 2005-2006, but funding for it was frozen after a few years.
Slabs from the through Alchevsk steel plant were shipped through Izmail in 2013. Their shipment was suspended in winter 2013/2014. The press service of the shipping company explained to the Center for Transport Strategies that its shipment suspended because agreement on a discount on the tariffs for transportation of this type of cargo could not be reached with the railroad. Cargo traffic pellets The Ferrexpo company reoriented pellets produced by the Poltava ore mining plant from Izmail to the Constanta (Romania) back in 2012.
As reported, the volume of cargo transportation by the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company’s ships totaled 2.465 million tons in 2013, which is 12.4 percent more than the volume in 2013.
Barinov was appointed as the acting board chairman of the Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company in early July this year.
