Metinvest assessed Poland’s readiness for Ukrainian exports

Polish infrastructure is not ready for the volume of Ukrainian exports and cannot replace the ports blocked by the Russians in the Black and Azov Seas. This was stated by the commercial director of the Metinvest group Dmitry Nikolaenko in an interview with the Polish business publication WNP.PL.

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According to him, Poland could receive 70 million tons of exports per year, which were lost in Ukrainian ports because of the war.

“But the total volume of exports through Polish ports did not increase and even decreased by 1% due to the unpreparedness of the infrastructure: there are not enough capacities for handling goods both at the border and in ports, and the infrastructure itself is designed for import, not for export,” Nikolaenko said.

He recalled that during the war, Metinvest began to look for new ways to export, but alternative routes were difficult.

“There are two routes. The first is to the northern port of Poland, the second is to the southern port of Romania. You can also use the Croatian ports, but their capacity is weaker than the Ukrainian ports, and all of the logistics issue becomes more complicated,” said Nikolaenko.

The situation is complicated by the fact that in Ukraine the railways are wide, while in Europe they are narrow. This affects not only reloading, but also storage of products. Furthermore, when goods such as pellets or iron ore concentrate are loaded into grapples, impurities can enter the product and cleaning is an expensive process. As a result, Metinvest lost more than $19 million in 2022.

“The route to Poland entails serious logistical problems for us. Last winter, warehouses in Polish ports were filled with coal, and it was impossible to load our products. There were also problems with the speed of movement of goods – this is half of what we are used to in Ukraine”, he stressed.

It will be remembered that a week ago, Poland called on the EU to help increase the capacity of the ports to increase the Ukrainian grain supply through the Baltic Sea.

The media also reported that Russia is ramping up sales of metal to the EU, while Ukrainian ports are blocked.