Loading on the Russian railway network will amount to approximately 1,111.8 million tons by the end of this year, which is 6% lower than last year, said Irina Magnushevskaya, Deputy General Director of Russian Railways and head of the Corporate Transport Services Center (CFTO), at a briefing in late October. She noted that, in general, the decrease in the indicator is due to domestic transportation, while "there is good growth in exports in a number of segments." At the beginning of the second half of the year, the state-owned company expected a decrease of an average of 5%.
Transfers of containers in the Russian Railways network are progressing to a total of about 7.5 million in 20 percent equivalent (TEU), which is about 5% more than a year earlier. The decrease is due to the weak activity of importers this year. At the beginning of the year, the state-owned company was targeting 1.5% growth in the segment by 2024, to 8 million TEU.
Magnushevskaya noted the positive dynamics of grain shipments in September — October, associated with high risk, which are expected this year at the level of 135-137 million tons.
"We also assume that the Russian market for reselling construction cargo, by the end of October 2024, amounted to only 1%, while the cumulative result for 10 months is a decrease of 11.9%. In turn, the volume of transportation of oil and petroleum products is decreasing due to unscheduled repairs at enterprises," said the head of the CFTO.
In November and December, loading is expected to decrease by 2.6% and 4.8%, respectively, compared to the same months in 2024. Magnushevskaya added that there was no surge in applications for November, before the Russian Railways tariff indexation from December 1, as applications were received fairly evenly.
Russian Railways is tentatively planning for a 0.6% increase in loading by 2026 compared to the current year. "But for our part, of course, we hope for positive changes in areas that we cannot influence, including the growth of the country's economy as a whole, and we will work to grow by 6%, which we will lose this year to the level of 2024." Magnushevskaya concluded.
