In mid-May, shipping giant MSC announced the acquisition of shares in various Ukrainian intermodal terminals. Industry experts quickly labelled the move as “the deal of the year”, signalling confidence in the future logistics business from and to Ukraine. On the flipside, success depends on good decision-making, and that is where mistakes loom.
The acquisition of shares in the terminals by MSC, through its subsidiary Medlog, is a “very historically important event”, Ukrainian rail expert Boris Ganaylyuk comments to RailFreight.com. Medlog acquired a 50% stake in N’UNIT, a company operating intermodal terminals in Kharkiv, Dnipro and Kyiv. Moreover, it bought a 25% stake in the container terminal in Mostyska, on the border with Poland and equipped to switch rail gauges, which is also part of N’UNIT’s network.
The deal indicates that Ukraine-Europe intermodal traffic will come to the foreground, according to Ganaylyuk. “There are all the objective prerequisites for this”, he says, but success depends on future decisions. If stakeholders, such as Ukrainian Railways, Polish rail operator PKP, customs and border guards, and EU and Ukrainian authorities move forward reasonably, then there will be “constant sharp growth of intermodal transport”. As for the EU and Ukrainian authorities, they should work to improve border bureaucracy for passing intermodal trains.
Railing to the border
However, success is not yet guaranteed. In fact, a seemingly preventable setback is right around the corner: infrastructure investments on the border are set to reduce capacity significantly around the Mostyska border terminal.
The situation is as follows: there are currently two standard gauge tracks and two broad gauge tracks on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Current investment plans intend to connect the city of Lviv to the standard gauge network by converting one of the two broad gauge tracks. Consequently, there would be two single tracks, instead of one double track leading to Lviv from the border.
“This will sharply limit throughput and turn the main strategic line for the entire continent into an ordinary marginal one”, explains Ganaylyuk. “In short, instead of using the funds for the construction of a new line, they will use it to destroy the existing one.” A potential disaster for throughput capacity in the area. Rather, the money should help build a new track from scratch, argues Ganaylyuk. “This will be significantly cheaper in total.”
Ganaylyuk points out that a standard gauge railway to Lviv is a good idea in principle, despite his opposition to a broad gauge conversion. In fact, such a 1,435-millimetre railway is part of his plan for an overhaul of Lviv’s railway infrastructure.