During January-June 2018, Russian Railways loaded 641.8 mn tons of cargo, up 3.4% year-on-year.
Coal loading grew 5% up to 186.2 mn tons. Oil and products, Russian Railways’ second most important commodity in terms of tonnage, grew marginally by 0.1% to 117.9 mn tons.
Ferrous and manganese ore was up 4.4% to 57 mn tons, ferrous metals up 12.2% to 39.5 mn tons, chemical and mineral fertilizers up 5.8% to 30.1 mn tons, timber and logs up 2.7% to 23.5 mn tons.
Grain loading amounted to 14.4 mn tons surging 55.3% year-on-year. Chemicals and soda volume grew 2.9% up to 13.4 mn tons.
Other cargo categories loading volumes declined. Thus, construction cargo was down 3% to 63 mn tons, coke down 3.2% to 5.4 mn tons, ferrous metal scrap down 2.6% to 6.9 mn tons.
Cement loading declined 5.2% down to 11.8 mn tons, industrial and forming materials were down 2.8% to 17.5 mn tons, and non-ferrous ore and raw sulfur down 2.3% to 9.9 mn tons.
In June, Russian Railways loaded 107 mn tons of cargo, up 3.1% compared to June 2017 and 3.1% below the May 2018 result.