RUSSIA: United Wagon Co manufactured a total of 15 900 wagons in 2016, in line with its targets and representing a 28% increase from the previous year. Its target for 2017 is to increase output to between 18 000 and 20 000 wagons, by making more use of production capacity at the Tikhvin Freight Car Building and TikhvinChemMash plants and expanding capacity at TikhvinSpetsMash.
UWC’s product range was diversified during 2016, with 40 wagon models and variants now offered. Large orders from United Grain Co and Uralkali mean the proportion of hopper wagons produced increased from 4% to 14% of the total output, while the start of production at TikhvinChemMash in December 2015 means chemical tank wagons now account for 3% of output. In late 2016 the first batch of 250 timber flat wagons produced by TikhvinSpetsMash was delivered to Lokotrans.
Around 70% of the wagons produced by UWC were sold directly to third parties, with the largest customers including VM Trans, Business Alliance, United Grain, Uralkali and Metafrax. The remaining 30% of wagons were used to increase UWC’s own fleet to 20 800 wagons by the end of 2016; these are expected to be sold to customers in 2017.
The opening of three service centres at Uralkali, Uralchem and Metafrax sites in the last quarter of 2016 took UWC’s support network to a total of 58 centres in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.
