The Ukrzaliznytsia State Railway Transport Administration is suggesting that the Russian Railways company should introduce a unified lowering coefficient of 0.6 in transportation of crude oil from Kazakhstan across the CIS countries in the 2009 freight year.

Ukrainian News learned this from the press service of the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The proposal was made during a tariff conference of the railway administrations of the CIS countries, Estonia and Latvia that took place in Chisinau, Moldova, from October 21 to October 24.

According to the report, the railway administrations tried to align their tariff policies in freight transportation for the 2009 freight year.

During the conference Ukraine and Russia agreed to extend the period of validity of through tariff rates (i.e. for freight transportation from the point of departure to the point of destination through any station.

The countries also agreed through tariffs on transportation of crude oil from Kazakhstan (Kulsary and Makhambet stations) through Ukrainian ports, ferrous metal scrap from Kazakhstan to Moldova, liquefied gas in own tank cars from Kazakhstan (Kulsary Station), alumina from Ukrainian ports to Tajikistan and cotton from Uzbekistan to the Illichivsk merchant seaport in Odesa region.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, TNK-BP Commerce (Kyiv), which manages assets of the Russia-UK company TNK-BP in Ukraine, in August declared a threat of shutdown of petroleum refineries because of raising costs of railway transportation.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications raised the coefficient applied to railway freight transportation tariffs by 6.5% as of August 23 and by 9.6% more as of October 1.