In Ukraine, due to problems with blocking the Polish border, interruptions in the delivery of many goods have already begun. Many delivery services warn that the previously agreed upon deadlines are no longer in effect, and generally do not undertake to name specific dates for the delivery of orders: they say, everything will depend on whether the shipment of goods gets stuck at one of the border crossings.
“You understand, goods can remain stuck at the border for two weeks,” they said on the Nova Poshta hotline.
Due to such uncertainty, many Ukrainians, as delivery drivers say, have put plans to buy things in foreign online stores on pause for now.
“I wanted to order gifts for my family for the holidays, but it is unclear whether they will be able to deliver them in time, for example, for St. Nicholas Day (the celebration date of which was moved this year to December 6 - Ed.). There's not much time left. So you’ll have to choose something in our stores, although it’s more expensive,” Kiev resident Tatyana tells us.
But Ukrainian sellers also have less and less goods in their warehouses: trucks with goods are stuck in queues at the border, and no one was counting on this. So the assortment that is available is decreasing literally every day.
Industrialists, pharmacists and gas station workers are also complaining about delivery disruptions.
“There are delays in deliveries of about a week - that’s a lot. Plus the cost of delivery has increased even more. Nobody knows what will happen next, so we have to order goods in reserve, although this is not profitable for us. And it is already clear that the price tag for finished products will increase due to such logistics,” says the head of the Yaroslav concern, Alexander Barsuk.
Over the past week, the cost of autogas at domestic gas stations has jumped by 2 hryvnia. One of the main reasons is logistics problems that are drying up the market.
Director of the Alkaloid Kyiv company Artem Matveev said that there are problems with importing vaccines: long queues plus the need to comply with temperature requirements, which is not always easy in stationary trucks.
We figured out what is happening at the border now and how it affects Ukrainian retail and manufacturers.
What's happening at the border now?
Due to a strike by Polish carriers, the Ukrainian-Polish border became virtually impassable. Negotiations with the protesters have not yet had much success. Polish carriers, as before, insist on the return of the permitting system for Ukrainian transport companies, and it is simply unrealistic to resolve this issue at the Polish level, since the “visa-free” regime for Ukraine was introduced by the European Union.
Their Slovak colleagues may also join the protests of Polish carriers. That is, the bypass routes, which our transport workers are increasingly using to avoid queues, may also be blocked.
According to the Ministry of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, Ukrainian drivers have remained blocked at the Polish border for more than 10 days. In the direction of Yagodin the queue stretched for more than 30 kilometers, Rava-Ruska - for 10 kilometers, Krakovets - for 16 kilometers.
The ministry, together with specialized associations, has created a headquarters to help Ukrainian drivers, providing them with food, water, medicine and fuel. At each checkpoint there are coordinators who collect orders from drivers. The possibility of evacuating some of the drivers is being studied.
According to Ukrtransbezopasnosti, as of November 19, at the Yagodin-Dorogusk checkpoint, more than 2.3 thousand cars were standing in line, while only 11 trucks crossed the border per day (which is half as much even compared to the first days of the Polish protests). carriers and tens of times less than when the checkpoint was operating as usual). At the checkpoint "Rava-Russkaya - Grebenne" there are about 1,300 trucks in line, 71 vehicles passed per day. The situation is best at the Krakovets-Korcheva checkpoint: there are about 3.5 thousand trucks in line there, 261 vehicles passed through in 24 hours. The relatively good traffic there is due to the fact that a lot of humanitarian aid goes through this checkpoint, which is still being allowed through, plus drivers transporting “strategic” cargo have the technical ability to bypass the general queue (there are storage tanks at the checkpoint), which they are deprived of at other checkpoints affected by strikes.
From the statistics of Ukrtransbezopasnost it is also clear that the queues at Yagodina and Rava-Ruska have sharply decreased. For example, in the first days there were 4-5 thousand trucks there, now there are 1.5-2.5 thousand. This means that drivers are trying to avoid blocked sections of the border by choosing routes through other checkpoints. This was confirmed to us by the head of the Association of International Carriers, Vladimir Balin, according to whom drivers try to bypass queues through Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, although this is very unprofitable: often we are talking about double mileage.
Meanwhile, queues are also growing at checkpoints used for detours. For example, at the Shegeni-Medika checkpoint on the border with Poland, which is not covered by strikes (however, protesters recently said that they could block it too), on November 19 there were about 2.3 thousand cars in line, 169 passed in 24 hours. Then There is a queue here for almost 14 days. For comparison: on November 14, there were less than 2 thousand trucks in line here.
On the border with Romania (Porubnoye-Siret point) there are about 2.5 thousand cars in line (compared to 2,100 trucks on November 16), 270 cars passed per day, that is, you need to wait more than 9 days. At the border with Hungary (Chop-Zahony point) there are 2.8 thousand cars in the queue (by November 14 there were 2.4 thousand), 284 passed in one day (waiting time - up to 10 days). On the border with Slovakia (point “Uzhgorod - Vyshne Nemecke”) there are 1,500 trucks in the queue, about 120 pass through per day (the time in the queue is more than 12 days).
That is, the situation is worsening on almost all sections of the border. And this has already affected the supply of goods to Ukraine.
Plus 2 hryvnia for autogas and risks with gasoline and diesel
According to the head of the A-95 agency, Sergei Kuyun, due to “impassable” borders, there is already a shortage of automobile gas at Ukrainian gas stations. Fuel traditionally entered Ukraine through the Yagodin checkpoint, which is now practically blocked. Not all suppliers were able to solve the problem, so outages began and prices went up. For example, at some point the wholesale price tag exceeded the retail price, soaring to 32-34 hryvnia. Then prices began to rise at gas stations. During the week from November 10 to 17, the retail price of autogas increased by 2.15 hryvnia per liter, to 34.82 hryvnia. In the Avias gas station network, autogas has risen in price even more - by 3.05 hryvnia. The market is now fueled mainly by domestic gas, which is sold through the Ukrainian Energy Exchange. But even there, due to increased demand, prices are rising. So, at the auction on November 15, the cost of the resource was 62.5 thousand hryvnia per ton, which is 33.75 hryvnia per liter. Suppliers now have every hope of supplying imported gas by rail, which has been ordered in increased volumes.
But as for diesel and gasoline, not only is it not becoming more expensive, but on the contrary, it has fallen in price at wholesale by $24-32 per ton. The decline in prices is associated with the collapse of quotations for petroleum products in Europe, and importers managed to bypass the “logistics traffic jams” at the Polish border.
If earlier automobile supplies from Poland accounted for 56% of the structure of gasoline imports, today they have decreased to 30%. According to the specialized platform enkorr, from November 6 to November 12, 2 thousand tons of gasoline entered Ukraine through Polish checkpoints, which is half as much as before the start of the protests by Polish carriers.
During the same period, diesel imports through Poland fell by 40%, to 11.5 thousand tons. At the same time, the volume of railway deliveries increased by 10%, and many importers are sending fuel tankers through Romania, Slovakia and Hungary. But what will happen if Slovak carriers also join the protests (who on November 16, as a sign of solidarity with their Polish colleagues, already blocked the Uzhgorod - Vyshne Nemecke point for an hour) is an open question. In addition, there are long queues (up to 14 days) for loading fuel in Constanta, Romania. Therefore, the supply of fuel decreases. From November 9 to November 15, the number of fuel trucks cleared through customs decreased by 15%, and diesel trucks by 13%. The volumes of gasoline supplied fell by 45% (to 15.9 thousand tons), but diesel increased by 11% (to 151.5 thousand tons).
It is unclear what will happen to fuel supplies in the event of prolonged blocking of borders and the expansion of protests and how price tags at Ukrainian gas stations will change.
Stocks of goods are melting, new ones do not have time to be delivered
The situation with other goods is gradually deteriorating.
As Alexander Barsuk told us, after the start of protests by Polish carriers, delivery times increased by about a week, plus delivery prices increased even more. Delivery prices, according to the head of the Association of International Freight Forwarders and owner of the transport company Viktor Berestenko, are rising due to queues: every additional day in a traffic jam at the border is an addition of 100-150 euros to the cost. Transport workers took on part of the additional costs, but transportation since November 6 has already increased in price by at least 50 euros per truck. And there are risks of further price increases.
Badger says that their company imports some of its raw materials from Europe. Therefore, increasing delivery times is a direct risk for production. If there is no product, the workshops may simply stop. This has not happened so far only due to the stocks in warehouses. To play it safe, the company also places new orders with a large reserve, which, according to Barsuk, is “very unprofitable,” but there is no other way out.
He says that difficulties with logistics will affect the cost of finished products: they will rise in price by at least 5%.
“We expect this to be short-lived. And for some orders where there are stocks, they suspended shipments in the hope that transportation tariffs would decrease at least a little,” Barsuk said.
According to Artem Matveev, pharmaceutical cargo comes to them through Romania, and there are no problems there yet. But in general, drug delivery has become more difficult in the market.
“It is especially problematic with goods that require strict adherence to a temperature regime of zero degrees or below, in particular vaccines,” says Matveev.
In general, interruptions with goods with codes 1-24 KVED may begin in the near future. This group includes, among other things, meat, fish, milk and dairy products, vegetables, nuts and citrus fruits, prepared foods and alcoholic beverages, and confectionery. As practice shows, movement with them has now slowed down especially significantly. Thus, according to Ukrtransbezopasnosti, on November 19, more than 520 trucks were parked at the Yagodin-Dorogusk checkpoint, which were traveling for such products to Poland or transporting them for export from Ukraine, but during the day they did not miss a single one. At the Krakovets-Korcheva checkpoint, out of more than a thousand trucks, only 69 vehicles were able to cross the border. And there is also a queue in the opposite direction, in which almost 3 thousand trucks have already accumulated, including about a thousand with food products. Although they should be allowed through, in fact many are standing in the general queue, Berestenko said.
According to Autoconsulting, delivery times for new cars are also being delayed. Dealers are already facing this problem. This may affect sales statistics for November and December, since the required number of cars simply will not be available.
Many services that deliver goods from foreign online stores to order also miss delivery deadlines.
The Novaya Poshta hotline told us that they cannot give “time guarantees” now, since the truck could simply get stuck at the border for two weeks.
The Handmade-Hub company noted that the situation at the border was an unpleasant surprise, especially since it is now the high season for orders. The company said that in order to minimize the risks of downtime, they abandoned oversized cargo transport (it lingers in the e-queue for a long time), and also revised logistics routes, bypassing blocked areas.
The situation is aggravated by the approaching holiday season, when demand for food and various consumer goods traditionally increases sharply. Therefore, some sellers who did not worry about stocks in advance are seeing their assortment decrease literally every day, and those who have stocks have the opportunity to increase their price tags.
