UWC to supply batch of sulphuric acid tank cars to Polar Freight Company

Research and production corporation “United Wagon Company” (UWC, the Holding or the Company) (MOEX: UWGN), Russia’s largest manufacturer of freight cars¹, will supply 150 sulphuric acid tank cars mounted on bogies with an axle load of 25 t to transportation and logistics operator Polar Freight Company. The batch is to be delivered by the end of the current year. The deal is being financed by the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development (UBRD).

Owing to its increased loading capacity of 77 t and a tank volume of 44 m³, each railcar is able to accommodate up to 12% more of freight. The tank features several design improvements. For example, the bent axis design of the tank ensures that its cargo is discharged to the maximum possible extent. The tank support assembly uses a gasket made from high-modulus polyethylene reputed for its wear resistance to corrosive substances.

The 15-9545 tank car for transporting technical grade sulphuric acid is equipped with bogies with a 25 t axle load. The reinforced bogie structure has a longer maintenance interval of up to 1 million km (or eight years) which reduces the life-cycle maintenance costs almost threefold compared with those for other similar railcars available in the market.

The partnership between UWC and the transportation company started as far back as 2015, when Polar Freight Company became one of the first operators to receive brand new tank cars just coming off the assembly line of the then freshly inaugurated railcar-building plant TikhvinChemMash (the Holding’s member entity).

Valery Baldin, Managing Director at Polar Freight Company, said, “The key factor to ensuring a successful transportation process is using a reliable means of transport. We have chosen UWC’s tank cars based on our previous favourable experience of operating railcars manufactured in Tikhvin. Our commitment is to build a long-term partnership with UWC as a supplier of new generation rolling stock.”

“This is not the first time that the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development has acted as a partner in a major deal like this one, which signals he UBRD is trusted by companies. The bank is acting as a lessee in this deal, with 150 tank cars purchased and leased to Polar Freight Company. I am happy to see us being able to support both companies at a time: the transport operator and the manufacturer, facilitating the development of the economy of the Ural region and Russia as a whole," said Tatiana Levchenko, Director of Major Corporate Client Relations at the UBRD.

¹Data sourced from INFOLine-Analytics: https://infoline.spb.ru/news/?news=162724