Ukrzaliznytsia ready to offer 10-year deal to domestic plant for rail production

Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, Chairman of the Board of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia, has announced the company's readiness to sign a long-term contract with a Ukrainian manufacturer for the domestic production of railway rails. He made the statement in an interview on the YouTube channel Straight Red.

Following the Russian occupation of Mariupol — previously the primary source of rails for Ukraine's railway system — the country effectively lost its domestic production capacity for this critical infrastructure component.

"Our rails used to come from Azovstal in Mariupol," Pertsovskyi said. "With Azovstal destroyed and lost, we were essentially left with no rail supply at all. So now we’ve assembled a network of suppliers from around the world. Just so you understand, we have rails from Japan, Austria, China — the first batch literally arrived yesterday — as well as from France and Poland."

Rebuilding domestic rail production, however, requires substantial investment.

"We’re in talks with our steelmakers. For me, it would be a dream come true if we stopped just exporting ore and then importing rails — and instead started making them here, locally. But this would require massive investment — hundreds of millions. Still, we’re prepared to find a workable model and offer a 10-year contract," Pertsovskyi said.

Ukrzaliznytsia requires 60,000 to 80,000 tons of rails annually. However, steel producers need production volumes of at least 200,000 to 300,000 tons per year for the business to be economically viable.

"As a result, they need to export as well. And those export markets are extremely competitive. Believe me, in Europe, no one is sitting around waiting for a Ukrainian rail supplier," Pertsovskyi noted.

• At the beginning of 2025, Ukrzaliznytsia began producing P-65 rail linings at its own facilities — components that were previously sourced from Azovstal.