Interpipe expands supplies of railway tires to foreign markets

The Ukrainian industrial company Interpipe plans to begin serial deliveries of bandages to the CIS countries from the 4th quarter of 2018. The bandages will be used to repair locomotive wheelsets.

For the past few years, the main market for the Company's bandage products has been Ukrainian enterprises. In particular, Ukrzaliznytsia was the main buyer of these products on the domestic market.

So, in 2017, Interpipe supplied more than 2,700 tons of bandages to the Ukrainian market, for 9 months. 2018 - about 2300 tons. However, small volumes of orders do not allow for the rhythmic operation of the production line.

Alexander Garkavy, Director of Railway Products Division, Interpipe:
- Unfortunately, the shroud line is idle most of the time. So, this year, production was launched only 2 times. This is a disappointing statistics, although the workshop is provided with the necessary equipment, raw materials and qualified personnel. The company is looking for ways to establish more rhythmic production and increase the line load. Therefore, from the 4th quarter Interpipe plans to start shipping bandage products to the CIS market.

For reference:
The bandage is an integral part of the precast wheel. Such a wheel, in contrast to a solid one, consists of a wheel center and a tire. Since the wear of locomotive wheels is significantly higher than that of wagon wheels, the prefabricated structure allows replacing only the tire - the part of the wheel that contacts the rail and wears out the most - and continue to operate the wheelset. However, bandage wheels have a large mass and are inferior to solid wheels in terms of reliability when operating at a higher speed and with increased load, therefore they prefer to use solid wheels in the world.

About the company:
Interpipe is a Ukrainian industrial company, a manufacturer of seamless pipes and railway wheels. The company's products are supplied to more than 80 countries around the world through a network of sales offices located in the key markets of the CIS, the Middle East, North America and Europe. In 2017, Interpipe sold 767 thousand tons of finished products, including 172 thousand tons of railway products. Railway products are sold under the KLW brand. The sales geography covers more than 60 countries of the world.
Interpipe employs 12 thousand people.