Russian Railways' coal loading in Far East down 4% in Jan-Sept, oil and petroleum products loading down 7%

VLADIVOSTOK. Oct 3 (Interfax) - The Far Eastern Railway, a branch of OJSC Russian Railways, saw loading fall 5.3% year-on-year in January-September 2025 to 53.6 million tonnes of cargo, the branch's press service said.

Shipments of bituminous coal fell 4.1% in 9M to 26 million tonnes, amounting to 48.5% of total loading. A decrease in the figure was noted for the first time in February and continued in the following months. Prior to this, for several years, coal loading on the Far Eastern Railway grew continuously.

Loading of oil and petroleum products decreased 7.2% to 5.8 million tonnes, timber cargo was down 8.9% to 1.8 million tonnes, ferrous metals fell 2.3% to 651,000 tonnes and industrial raw materials and molding materials declined 18.9% to 338,000 tonnes.

However, shipments of iron and manganese ore increased 17.2% to 2.5 million tonnes, non-ferrous ore and sulfur raw materials were up 3.6-fold to 776,000 tonnes and grain shipments increased 1.3-fold to 109,000 tonnes.

In September, 5.8 million tonnes of cargo were accepted on the Far Eastern Railway, down 8.5% compared to last year's figure.

The freight turnover of the Far Eastern Railway increased 2.7% in 9M and amounted to 182.7 billion tariff tonne-kilometers.

The Far Eastern Railway shipped more than 76.1 million tonnes of cargo in 2024, up 2.6% compared to the figure for the previous year. This included coal loading, which was up 4.2% to 36.1 million tonnes (47.4% of the total amount).

The Far Eastern Railway runs through six Russian regions - Primorye and Khabarovsk Territories, the Amur and Sakhalin regions, the Jewish Autonomous Region and Yakutia.