Russian railway operators may ask the government to temporarily lift the ban on the supply of railroad wheels to Russia by the Ukrainian industrial company Interpipe, Viktor Pinchuk, in order to solve the problem of rising prices for solid-rolled wheels. Aleksey Druzhinin, Executive Director of the Union of Railway Transport Operators (UCLT), told Kommersant about this.
“Due to the fact that operators began to massively withdraw wagons from repairs against the backdrop of growing demand for freight transportation, a local deficit is formed. It may worsen due to the shutdown of the facilities of the main manufacturers - the Vyksa plant of the United Metallurgical Company and Evraz NTMK of the Evraz group for preventive maintenance, ”the message says.
In recent years, Interpipe has supplied wheels to the Russian market on the terms of a protective duty of 34.22%, which was suspended for a year in the summer of 2019. And in December 2020, imports came under a complete ban: solid-rolled wheels and large car castings were added to the list of sanctioned products prohibited from delivery from Ukraine. But even before the ban, the company changed its supply chain, starting to sell wheels to the Russian market through unrelated structures.
In 2020, goods worth $ 156.8 million were imported from Ukraine to Russia in commodity group 8607, which includes wheels. In January-May 2021, the share of Russia in Ukrainian exports of this group of goods fell sharply, to 45%, but supplies continued to go, the volume amounted to $ 28.4 million.
