The Ukrainian Railways joint-stock company (Ukrzaliznytsia) transported 201,260 TEU of containerized cargo within Ukraine in 2023. This is approximately the same volume it transported in 2019.
Ukrzaliznytsia announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
According to the article "Containerization of Cargo Flows: What 2023 Was Like for the Market and How the Major Players Assess Its Growth Prospects," the volume of cargo transportation in containers in 2023 was 34% higher than in 2022, when only 150,000 TEU was transported. Ukrzaliznytsia transported 279,800 TEU in 2021.
In terms of the range of containerized cargo transported by Ukrzaliznytsia, grain accounted for 49%, ferrous metals 17%, oil cake 14%, and oil (10%).
Export cargoes transported in containers in 2023 totaled 124,946 TEU, import cargoes 37,083 TEU, domestic cargoes 38,387 TEU, and transit cargo 844 TEU.
As Ukrzaliznytsia emphasized in comments to the CFTS, the figures for 2023 are specifically for containers loaded with cargo unlike in previous years, when the company’s figures for container transportation included the transportation of empty containers.
Taking empty containers into account, Ukrzaliznytsia transported 257,200 TEU in 2022, 425,000 TEU in 2020, 384,000 TEU in 2019, and 334,900 TEU in 2018.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, the company currently uses its own rolling stock to transport 22% of the total volume of loaded containers transported by rail within Ukraine.
The other key players in the container transportation market are the Polish operator Laude; the Ukrainian company Levada Cargo, which is a co-owner of Container Terminal Mostyska (CTM); N'UNIT, a private company that handles intermodal containers (classic containers that can be transported on ships belonging to maritime container lines), has the largest private network of terminals in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Kharkiv, and accounts for a significant proportion of the containers handled by the CTM.
Container Terminal Mostyska, which started operations in the summer of 2022, handled over 72,400 TEU of containerized cargo in 2023. Most of the increase occurred in the year's second half and continued to gain momentum after that.
N'UNIT has also announced an improvement in its performance indicators. "The volume of transport almost doubled in 2023, compared with 2022, approaching the pre-war volume," the company said.
According to Laude, it transported 104,300 TEU of containerized cargo in 2021, 61,200 in 2022, and 89,300 TEU in 2023.
