Ukraine - 2.5 Waterways Assessment | Digital Logistics Capacity Assessments

Waterways Assessment

Ukraine has high potential navigable rivers - over 4,000 km: there are traditional waterways of the Dnipro river - 1,205 km and its tributaries (Desna- 520 km, Pripyat - 60 km) and Danube - 160 km, Southern Bug - 155 km, and other so-called small rivers.

The Dnipro River and its major tributaries Desna and Pripyat carried out to 90% of total transport. The remaining 10% are the Danube and other rivers (Desna, Dniester, Southern Bug, Seversky Donets, Ingulets, Vorskla, etc.).

Since Ukraine gained independence in 1991 until the invasion of the Russian army in 2022, the length of river waterways decreased almost two-fold (from 4,000 km to 2,100 km). At the same time, the density of river shipping routes reduced by 1.75 times; the intensity of freight transport - by 4,3 times, and passenger transportation - by 7.5 times.

image-20240205103404-1

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Location-of-the-Dnieper-Cascade-in-relation-to-the-International-Waterway-E40-1-Kiev_fig1_337908332)

After the beginning of the Russian invasion, water transport through the Dnipro River nearly stopped. The areas of the most active cargo traffic near the river mouse were either captured or located too close to the front line for any cargo operations. Also, cross-border water traffic between Ukraine and Belarus was stopped.

On 06 June 2023, the dam on the Dnipro River near Nova Kakhovka was fully destroyed leading to the shallowing of the large Kakhovka water reservoir and flooding of large territories down the river stream. The dam destruction had multiple long-term consequences for water logistics:

No shipping canal on the Dnipro downstream from the Zaporizhzhia dam including the connection to the Black Sea;
Destruction of major river port facilities in Kherson and Mykolaiv due to flooding.

As a result, it is hard to predict when full-scale water transportation on the Dnipro can resume even after the war ends. Taking into account the decline in cargo traffic even before the war (60 mln tonnes in 1990; 14 million tonnes in 2020), it is uncertain if the cargo traffic on Dnipro will resume.

At the same time, the blockade of the Black Sea ports of the Odesa region started by the Russian army on 22 July 2022, boosted demand for river transportation on the Danube. This alternative route can accommodate at least some of the Ukrainian exports even though its capacity is fairly limited compared to the seaports. The total capacity of the Ukrainian ports on the Danube is around 20 million tonnes. The new expansion projects may increase the capacity to 25 million tonnes by 2024. For comparison, the seaport Pivdenny can handle over 60 million tonnes of cargo per year.

Company Information

Only a few companies operate on rivers. During the war the water transport on Dnipro is de-facto stalled. The information below is relevant to the pre-war state of affairs. The landscape may change dramatically after the war due to changes in logistics strategy and/or damage to the infrastructure.

There is a private company "Ukrrichflot" http://ukrrichflot.ua/en/ which declares the presence of about 100 vessels of various types and their ports and other elements of the port infrastructure. The second important market player is agro corporation "NIBULON" http://www.nibulon.com/ . The company owns a private fleet and private river terminals. The logistics sector in terms of water transport included 81 vessels in 2021, 68 of which are now blocked in Ukrainian ports due to the war. Before the war, the company handled over 5.3 million tonnes of agricultural goods for exports.

Dnipro River Port (no commercial operations during the war)
Services rendered	Specialization in cargo processing	Main performance parameters
● Cargo handling complex (CHC)	● Metal products	Throughput capacity 5 700 000 tonnes
● Freight-forwarding services	● Cast iron	Length of quay 2 500 m
● Storage of cargoes	● Ferroalloys	16 berths
● Storage and processing of grain cargoes:	● Dry bulk cargo	Storage areas 69 thous.m² incl.:
─ in a silo with a volume of up to 30 thousand tonnes	● Packaged cargo	open space – 58 thous.m²/covered – 11 thous.m²
─ in covered grain storage with a capacity of 5 500 m³	● Timber	Navigation period: March – December
● Sand mining and sales	● Agricultural cargoes	Draft of vessels up to 4 m
● Fleet integrated servicing	● Mineral-building cargoes	Customs terminal situated within the port area
● Maintenance and running repairs for the vessels	● Metal scrap	3 railway stations
	● Containers	(«Nyzhnodniprovsk-Quay», «Dnipropetrovsk», «Kaidakska»)
	(stuffing/unstuffing)	Cranes
		25 dockside cranes with a lifting capacity 5-20 tonnes
		3 boom cranes with a lifting capacity 10-36 tonnes
		1 erecting crane with a lifting capacity up to 75 tonnes
		1 heavy-duty crane with a lifting capacity up to 100 tonnes
		7 lift trucks with a lifting capacity of some 1,5 to 3 tonnes
		2 rail weighing scales up to 150 tonnes
		3 truck scales up to 80 tonnes
Zaporizhzhia River Port (no commercial operations during the war)
Services rendered	Specialization in cargo processing	Main performance parameters
● Cargo handling complex (CHC)	● Metal products	Throughput capacity 5 900 000 tonnes
● Freight-forwarding services	● Cast iron	Length of quay 2 800 m
● Storage of cargoes	● Ferroalloys	12 berths
● Storage and processing of grain cargoes	● Dry bulk cargo	Storage areas 82 thous.m² incl.:
● Sand mining and sales	● Packaged cargo	open space – 78 thous.m²/covered – 4 thous.m²
● Fleet integrated servicing	● Timber	Navigation period: March – December
● Maintenance and running repairs for the vessels	● Agricultural cargoes	Draft of vessels up to 4 m
	● Mineral-building cargoes	Customs terminal situated within the port area
	● Metal scrap	2 railway stations
	● Containers	(«Port Velyke Zaporizhzhia», «Zaporizhzhia-1»)
	(stuffing/unstuffing)	Cranes
		30 dockside cranes with a lifting capacity 5-20 tonnes
		2 boom cranes with a lifting capacity up to 36 tonnes
		2 erecting cranes with a lifting capacity 20-32 tonnes
		10 lift trucks with a lifting capacity of some 1,5 to 5 tonnes
		2 rail weighing scales up to 150 tonnes
		3 truck scales up to 60 tonnes
Kherson River Port
Services rendered	Specialization in cargo processing	Main performance parameters
● Cargo handling complex (CHC)	● Metal products	Throughput capacity 1 800 000 tonnes
● Freight-forwarding services	● Cast iron	Length of quay 814 m
● Storage of cargoes	● Dry bulk cargo	7 berths
● Fleet integrated servicing	● Timber	Storage areas 23 thous.m² incl.:
● Roadstead board-to-board transshipment	● Agricultural cargoes	open space – 20 thous.m²/covered – 3 thous.m²
	● Metal scrap	Navigation period: Year-Round
		Draft of vessels up to 7 m
		Customs terminal situated within the port area
		1 railway station
		(«Kherson-Port»)
		Cranes
		7 dockside cranes with a lifting capacity 10-20 tonnes
		1 boom crane with a lifting capacity up to 25 tonnes
		4 lift trucks with a lifting capacity of some 1,5 to 5 tonnes
		1 front side lift truck with a lifting capacity up to 6 tonnes
		1 truck scale up to 60 tonnes
Mykolaiv River Port (no commercial operations during the war)
Services rendered	Specialization in cargo processing	Main performance parameters
● Cargo handling complex (CHC)	● Metal products	Throughput capacity 2 200 000 tonnes
● Freight-forwarding services	● Cast iron	Length of quay 750 m
● Storage of cargoes	● Ferroalloys	5 berths
● Fleet integrated servicing	● Agricultural cargoes	Storage areas 32 thous.m² incl.:
● Roadstead «board-on-board» transshipment	● Timber	open space – 32 thous.m²
● Grain handling from rail wagons and trucks via grain conveyor	● Mineral-building cargoes	Navigation period: Year-Round
		Draft of vessels up to 4,5 m
		through special spacer (barge and floating crane) up to 5,5 m
		in the roadstead up to 8,5 m
		1 railway station
		(«Mykolaiv-Vantazhnyi»)
		Cranes
		12 dockside cranes with a lifting capacity 5-20 tonnes
		3 boom cranes with a lifting capacity 10-36 tonnes
		5 lift trucks with a lifting capacity of some 1,5 to 10 tonnes
		2 front side lift trucks
		2 rail weighing scales up to 150 tonnes
		2 truck scales up to 60 tonnes
Nikopol River Port (not operational after Kakhovska dam destruction)
Services rendered	Specialization in cargo processing	Main performance parameters
● Cargo handling complex (CHC)	● Ferroalloys	Throughput capacity 700 000 tonnes
● Storage of cargoes	● Metal scrap	Length of quay 300 m
● Cargo-passenger service	● Mineral-building cargoes	1 berth
		Storage areas 4,2 thous.m² incl.:
		open space – 4,2 thous.m²
		Navigation period: March – December
		Draft of vessels up to 3,7 m
		Cranes
		2 dockside cranes with a lifting capacity up to 5 tonnes
		1 truck scale up to 25 tonnes