Federal authorities asked to step into situation with coal transportation by Russian Railways
Some 1.5 million tonnes of cargo not transported year-to-date
The Kemerovo Region Government asks Andrey Belousov, First Deputy Prime Minister, to step into the situation with railway transportation of coal out of the region (IAA PortNews has the letter of the Region Governor Vyacheslav Telegin.
Due to the congestion on the networks of Russian Railways, set aside trains and, consequently, short delivery of cargo to the ports, only 39.9% of the planned volumes could be transported in January 2022 (2.19 million tonnes of the planned 5.5 million tonnes), says the statement.
The disruption of plans for January 2022 threatens with nonfulfillment of presidential instructions on building up exports of Kuzbass coal by at least 30% by 2024 versus the result of 2020.
Vyacheslav Telegin also says the Kuzbass Government failed to agree with Russian Railways on the plan for coal transportation in 2022-2024, hence the risk of irregular loading of sea terminals. Therefore, the regional government asks RF Government review the plan of Russian Railways so that 58 million tonnes of coal could be transported from Kuzbass in 2022. IAA PortNews earlier covered the railway capacity problems >>>>.
In 2021, coal and coke handling in Russian seaports rose by 7.6%, year-on-year, to 202.7 million tonnes. The growth was driven by the favorable global prices. However, in the fourth quarter, their handling decreased by 4.3% which was particularly caused by a high level of cargo base in the end of 2020 while global prices for solid fuel started rising from the second half of 2020. Besides, there was a negative impact of unfavorable weather conditions and restrictions of the railway infrastructure on the routes to the Far East ports. Thus, coal transportation from Khakasia, Buryatia and Tyva to the Far East dropped in 2021 by 40–60%, year-on-year (-10.4 million tonnes). In this context, quotas for transportation from Khakasia, Buryatia and Tyva were brought up to discussion in the beginning of 2022 with a purpose to recover shipments of export coal.
Loading of export cargo on the networks of Russian Railways totaled 351.1 million tonnes in 2021 (+5.8%) which is a record-high result. Loading of cargoes bound for all sea basins of the country increased with the highest growth seen on the direction to the southern ports (+17.1%), hence the growth of coal handling in the Azov-Black Sea Basin by 66% in 2021.
