The forum was organized by APK-Inform Agency in partnership with IFC, “Swiss confederation”, NIBULON, Ukrainian Grain Association, Public Union “For Dnieper River Revival as Main Transport Artery of Ukraine”,  Inter-Faction Deputy Association “For the Development of Rivers of Ukraine”.
The participants of the event discussed the current state and prospects of the development of the domestic grain market, as well as “pain points” of the agrarian logistics in Ukraine (river, sea, railways and road transport).
NIBULON’s General Director, Hero of Ukraine Oleksiy Vadaturskyy told about the way to solve problems effectively, relying only on his own efforts. First of all, he drew attention of the audience to the problems that arise in the cities which in the absence of river logistics remain transit ones on the way of grain and other cargoes. In particular, the conference was attended by heads of Mykolaiv, Kherson and Voznesensk who supported the position of NIBULON on the development of efficient logistics of river transportation and removal of traffic load from the roads.
“If we can continue to develop rivers, Voznesensk will have a good prospect for development”, said Voznesensk mayor Vitalii Lukov. “Road transport will be removed from roads. No matter what roads you build, they will be destroyed due to loads when transporting goods. Therefore, it is our responsibility to the community to create laws that will contribute to the development of transport logistics in Ukraine”.
According to Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, once Mykolaiv and Kherson were leaders in shipbuilding industry of the Soviet Union. 70 % of all shipbuilders worked at four largest shipyards of these cities. And in total, 120,000 people were employed at 30 shipyards of Ukraine. At present, only 3,500 people from this gigantic army of highly skilled shipbuilders are employed (700 of them are employees of NIBULON shipbuilding and repair yard). Thus, employment in the industry has decreased by 40-50 times. It is noteworthy that during the years of shipbuilding collapse, the volumes of cargo transportation fell by about the same amount.
Mykolaiv, Kherson and Voznesensk are located on the rivers. But when you go to a river bank, you will not see a single river vessel – neither cargo nor passenger vessel. This is due to the fact that Ukraine has made such a distortion in price policy that all goods go to the ports of Big Odesa and Mykolaiv by rail and road transport. Meanwhile, in civilized countries all should be transported by rivers. And NIBULON, contrary to the state, implements this idea.  
“Our company has studied the experience of the US and European countries, as well as experience of Belarus. We have set ourselves a goal and we will achieve it. We have built 12 terminals on the Dnipro River and the Southern Buh River. In Soviet period, 50 thousand tons were transported along the Southern Buh River. And now we transport 600-700 thousand tons. That is, cargo transportation increased by 12-15 times. And this is not the limit. Next year, we plan to transport one more million tons of cargoes – stone, sand, crushed stone for the construction industry of Mykolaiv and ports of Big Odesa. To this end, corresponding vessels will be constructed”, said Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.
Why does not water transportation develop itself in Ukraine? Oleksiy Vadaturskyy said that the reason for this was the absence of infrastructure, absence of fleet and low economy of such transportation.
At present, river transport is uncompetitive, as compared to other modes of transport. Besides the fact that transportation by water takes more time, it is also more expensive. For example, the cost of transporting a ton of cargo from Kremenchuk to Mykolaiv by rail is UAH 208, while by river transport it will be UAH 302, because due to lack of dredging operations, non-self-propelled vessels are loaded by 65 %. This is the second factor, after absence of infrastructure, which prevents one from redirecting cargoes to river.
According to Oleksiy Vadaturskyy, if river transport is exempted from unnecessary charges (in total, 15 charges and dues are paid) and dredging is performed to load vessels up to 100 %, river transport will be competitive as compared to railway. Transportation of one ton by the same route will cost only UAH 182 instead of UAH 302. This is a much more rational way than the endless increase in rail rates which affect the whole economy of the state. However, the state doesn’t hurry to free the domestic river fleet from charges. So, it loses out not only to railway, but also to vessels under foreign flags that work in our waters and are exempted from these payments. Who will construct a fleet under such conditions?  No one. Because it will be economically unjustified.
According to Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych, he supports the idea of exempting river transport from excessive charges based on the successful experience of the leading countries of the world, “There is no need to invent something or reinvent the wheel. Let’s take good things that already work and copy them”. He hopes that he will be able to get across his idea to the MIU and the people’s deputies of Ukraine.
In order to increase volumes of transportation by rivers, there must be infrastructure. To perform dredging in Kamianske district (formerly Dniprodzerzhynsk), only USD 1.5 million is needed. NIBULON has constructed special machinery to this end and has performed experimental dredging. But nothing happens. The company has no the right to conduct works, and tender announcements are postponed from year to year.
Meanwhile, Ukraine doesn’t maintain the declared depth of 3.65 m. The real depth of the Dnipro River is 2.9 m, and above Kyiv it is 60 cm instead of 2.2 m. Therefore, everyone who talks about transit flows of goods from Belarus and the Baltic States to Odesa and Mykolaiv must realize that this requires a fairly large amount of dredging works. And despite the fact that the Presidents of Ukraine and Belarus signed a memorandum, no work on dredging is carried out.
Therefore, it is not surprising that under such a policy of the state we have only 1.5 thousand km of inland waterways out of about 4 thousand km we had in 1991. So even if river transport is competitive, there is no opportunity for vessels to operate. For example, there is only 1.65 m instead of 2.9 m in the Southern Buh River. And if three years ago NIBULON didn’t perform dredging at its own expense there, in a few years the river would shallow up to 50-60 cm. The same story is with the Desna River. It was navigable on the area of 510 km and now in some areas its depth is 70 cm. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Infrastructure annually declares that it allocates significant funds to carry out dredging. But dredging itself is not carried out.
Another component is fleet. At the dawn of independence, in Ukraine there were over 29,000 vessels. At present, there are just over 400 units left. The fleet was taken out of the state and sold to Russia and other countries. And since the freight there is almost twice as expensive as ours, it will not be possible to attract these vessels for transportation by inland waterways. There are no depths; the infrastructure is not enough and there is lack of cargo. There is no sense to expect the river fleet from Europe to come – they have a completely different type of vessels. Because the Dnipro River is no longer a river, but a system of lakes where waves can reach 3 m during a storm. Under such conditions, a river vessel from Europe would sink during its first trip.
At present, 42 out of 447 Ukrainian bulk carriers and barges are owned by NIBULON. The company plans to have a fleet of about 100 modern automated vessels requiring twice less crew members, but the ministry doesn’t allow one to reduce the number of crew members, referring to some outdated regulations.
According to the calculations made by NIBULON, it is possible to transport 15.6 million tons of grain cargoes along the Dnipro River. If Ukraine exports 70 million tons, then 20-25 % of them can be transported along the Dnipro River. At present, only 5 % of grain is transported along the river. So there is a prospect, but it is necessary to solve the problems with the Dnipro River in order to implement it.
“Our agrarian region needs this agrarian logistics because we estimate those losses from the harvest that remains in the fields. No manager in any country would allow this”, said Kherson city mayor Volodymyr Mykolaienko.
“By 2020, NIBULON will be transporting 4 million tons by river fleet; more than 60 % of NIBULON’s cargoes will be transported by rivers to the sea. What do we do to this end? We bring our elevators closer to agricultural producers – we construct them in the areas where there was no elevator in 100 km from the Dnipro River. And farmers from the Left-bank Ukraine were forced to carry grain from the Dnipro River to any linear elevator in Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava or Kirovohrad regions (300-400 km). Now grain is transported to the Dnipro River, and then it is transported downstream.  As a result, farmers save money, and trucks do not break roads”, summed up Oleksiy Vadaturskyy.