Rail freight traffic bound for Russian ports rose 4.2% in Q1 to 70,3 million tonnes
The volume of freight moved by railway operators to Russian ports terminals in January-March 2015 amounted to 70,3 million tonnes, or 4.2% more than a year earlier, the Association of Commercial Seaports of Russia (ASOP) told IAA PortNews.
It is well known that the freight delivered by railways to the seaports of Russia account for 50,9% of total volumes.
During the first three months cargo throughput at Russian seaports increased by 9.1% year-on-year to 158,8 million tonnes, including dry bulk - 65.2 million tonnes (+3,0%) and liquid bulk - 93.6 million tonnes (+13.8%).
The 9-percent increase in shipments of freight through Russian seaports was driven primarily by export of coal that rose 2.4% on Q1 2014 to 26.4 million tonnes, ferrous metals - 6.9 million tonnes (+10.4%), grain - 5,1 million tonnes (+7.3%), mineral fertilizers - 3.5 million tonnes (+6.4%), cargo carried by ferries - 3.4 million tonnes (twofold), timber cargo - 1.2 million tonnes (+8.2%), scrap metal - 1.0 million tonnes (+4.3%).
The main volume of freight handled at the country's ports were exports – 82.1% of the total throughput. Outbound cargoes amounted to 130,4 million tonnes, up 11.0% on Q1 2014.
Accordingly, unloading of rail cars at the ports increased significantly. The average unloading rate of rail cars in Q1 2015 was 11,104 cars per day, which is 10.4% more than in the same period last year.
This helped to boost cargo volumes at Russia's southern ports in the reporting period: the Azov-Black Sea basin ports reported a 18.6% gain in shipments to 53.0 million tonnes, including 17.4 million tonnes of dry bulk cargo (+ 21.3%) and 35.6 million tonnes of liquid bulk (+ 17.3%).
The increase in freight throughput was due to a 19.3% growth in ferrous metals, a 3.8 times surge in ferries cargo, a 33.4% increase in coal exports. Handling of mineral fertilizers leaped by 37.5%, Ro-Ro cargoes – by 6.2 times, ore - by 7.9%, and non-ferrous metals - by 1.5 times.
Increased throughput at the port of Novorossiysk rose 9.9% to 33.1 million tonnes, of the port of Tuapse - by 28.4% to 6.5 million tonnes.
In January-March 2015 freight volume delivered to ports by railways to the port of Novorossiysk grew by 16.2%, to the port of Tuapse by 20.0%.
With this traffic volume growth terminal operators of southern ports worked hard to expedite unloading of railcars, to avoid delays, ASOP said.
The average unloading of trains in the port of Novorossiysk in Q1 2015 notably increased to 1,485 railcars a day (+3.3% year-on-year), while in the port of Tuapse - 657 units / day (+15.5%).
Previously, IAA PortNews reported that first VP of Russian Railways (RZD) Vadim Morozov who participates in TransRussia 2015 conference in Moscow has blamed trains delays on Russian seaports saying that there is a backlog of 80 to 200 trains heading for ports sitting idle regularly on access railways.