Page 39 - UKRRptAug22

Lithuanian Railways has started transporting oil products for Ukraine, bypassing Belarus. The LTG Cargo company, part of the Lithuanian Railways group, has started the transportation of oil products produced by the Orlen Lietuva enterprise for Ukraine, bypassing Belarus, writes the Lithuanian publication Obzor.lt. The company plans to transport such cargo two or three times a week and bring its monthly volumes up to 30,000 tons by the end of the summer. LTG Cargo transports petroleum products between the Močkava (Lithuania) and Trakiški (Poland) terminals. The route runs through Poland to the Jagodyn crossing point on the border with Ukraine, and Polish and Ukrzaliznytsia carriers contribute to transportation. In recent weeks, 12 trains with more than 12,000 tons of oil products left for Ukraine on this route.
Prior to the war, 89% of Ukraine’s grain exports were transported via Black Sea ports. The Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chernomorsk, Pivdennyi, and Mykolayiv were handling up to 6mn tonnes of grain per month in 2021 and were preparing to set new records in 2022 thanks to investment in expanded port infrastructure and bountiful crops.
Railways and trucks have started being used to haul grain into EU countries, increasing transit costs dramatically and still not being to fill the gap of blockaded ports. In May 2022, for example, only 40,000 tonnes of grains (4% of the total) were exported by trucks. The remaining exports (around half of the total quantity) were transported by train through Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary. With all this effort, Ukraine managed to export only around 1mn tonnes per month in April and May.
Exports of oilseeds fared no better. Ukraine managed to export less than 200,000 tonnes of sunflower oil in May 2022, less than a third of what it could provide. Ukrainian farmers have started to send unprocessed sunflower seed abroad, mostly to be processed in Turkey. Such a downgrade in the value chain has not been seen for over 20 years, since the Ukrainian oil crushing sector emerged from the post-communist transition. And over-land transport is slower and beset by bureaucratic delays at borders, increasing prices by at least 30%.
As the time for the new wheat harvest approaches (July), 15mn tonnes of grains are still awaiting transport, severely reducing the incentives of producers to sow new crops as storage silos are full. Several wheat-producing regions in the south and eastern parts of Ukraine – affected by the ongoing war – have missed their crop-seeding time.
Ukraine has spent $3.3B on oil product imports. From January-June 2022, Ukraine imported oil products worth $3.3B, which is 56.3% more than in the same period last year, announced the State Customs Service. At the same time, the physical volume of imports decreased by 14.7% to 3.2 million tons compared to the first half of 2021. Fuel was imported from Belarus costing $753.6M (share – 23.11%), the Russian Federation – for $569.6M (17.47%), India – for $283.6M (8.7%), and from other countries – for $1.7B (50.72%). In addition, Ukraine exported 45,564 thousand tons
39 UKRAINE Country Report XXXX 2018 www.intellinews.com