Evacuation of the “Nibulon” fleet from Mykolaiv can reduce prices for logistics on the Danube – opinion

French Ambassador for the Black Sea Mikael Roux visited the facilities of “Nibulon” in Mykolaiv, where he discussed the problem of the blocked fleet with company representatives.

During the meeting, Nibulon’s director of interaction with the authorities, Mykhailo Rizak, noted that the evacuation of the fleet from the Mykolaiv port hub should return the price of freight on the Danube to the pre-war level, which would make logistics cheaper by about $10 per ton.

Mykhailo Rizak also emphasized that the Danube logistics built by the company already during the war period played an important role for all Ukrainian exports at a time when the deep-sea ports of Odessa were not working.

However, despite the high potential and practicality, today this export route is not used to the maximum, because it loses in the cost of logistics to the port to the deep-sea ports of Odessa by 6-8 dollars per ton.

“Bessarabia is now more expensive in terms of rail and road delivery compared to deep-sea ports, as it is an additional 250 km of roads and 200 km of railway, which increases the cost of logistics,” said Rizak.

He sees a way out in equalizing the situation, in particular, “Ukrzaliznytsia” could provide competitive conditions for the delivery of agricultural products to the Danube ports by providing special tariffs for its services. Also, through the ambassador, Mykhailo appealed to French organizations with a request to help purchase another 250 grain wagons.

“If Ukraine had implemented the EU experience regarding the compensation/cancellation of excise duty on fuel for cabotage transportation, we would have saved the roads from trucks and today we would see the Southern Bug and the Dnipro navigable,” the company’s director of interaction with authorities is confident.

Previously, USM reported that “Nibulon” moved part of the fleet from Mykolaiv to the Danube.