February 28 2003, 16:53 SeaNews

Ukraine faces shortage of railway rolling stock

Ukrainian freight owners are more and more suffering from deficit of railway rolling stock. It particularly concerns railtanks for transportation of petroleum products and vegetable oils.

Producers of vegetable oils perceive grave deficit of railtanks, which causes breaks of contracts and decrease of production.

According to producers, the problem of rolling stock undersupply has been exacerbated during February. Transport ministry has said that besides putting the cars out of operations due to ageing, the cause of the problem was an export of about 30 percent of railtanks to the countries of "near abroad" (former Soviet Union states).