Russian Railways have reported a 3.9% year-on-year decline in rail container traffic for January-August 2025. All in all, 5.026 mn TEU was carried during the period under report.
Domestic container traffic decreased by 5.1% to make 1.976 mn TEU, while exports grew 7.6% to 1.181 mn TEU.
Laden container traffic made 3.579 mn TEU, down 6.4% year-on-year. Tonnage-wise, containerized cargo amounted to 53.4 mn tons, down 2.6% year-on-year.
According to Russian Railways, the commodities that grew the most were salt, up 1.8-fold to 8.8 thousand tons, sugar, up 29.6% to 5.2 thousand TEU, and non-ferrous metals, up 29% to 108.9 thousand TEU.
Containerized meal and flour increased by 4.9% to 27.3 thousand TEU, timber and woodwork by 1.2% to 401.8 thousand TEU, and paper by 7.9% to 260.5 thousand TEU.
Ferrous metals were up 3.6% to 144.7 thousand TEU, non-ferrous ore and raw sulphur up 9.8% to 22.9 thousand TEU, and other food products up 14.6% to 247.1 thousand TEU.
All the other commodities demonstrated a downward trend.
Vehicles and parts dropped by 42.1% to 186.6 thousand TEU, coal by 48.9% to 4.9 thousand TEU, construction cargo by 35.2% to 119.4 thousand TEU, potatoes, vegetable and fruit by 22.1% to 7.1 thousand TEU.
Chemicals and soda were down 1.8% to 528.8 thousand TEU, grain down 10.3% to 77.1 thousand TEU, hardware down 4.2% to 281 thousand TEU, consumer goods down 1.2% to 283 thousand TEU, machinery, engines and equipment down 16.4% to 218.2 thousand TEU, oil and products down 9.8% to 62.3 thousand TEU.
Containerized chemical and mineral fertilizers declined by 9.4% to 300.8 thousand TEU, fish by 5.6% to 22.6 thousand TEU, meat and butter by 7.6% to 18.4 thousand TEU, other and LCL by 0.8% to 134.9 thousand TEU.
In August 2025, Russian Railways carried, by SeaNews’ estimate, 619.8 thousand TEU including 444.6 thousand TEU of laden containers. Domestic railway traffic, both laden and empty, made about 236.3 thousand TEU, and exports amounted to 141.6 thousand TEU.
Photo: Russian Railways