UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 19, 2019. First Freight Company’s Chelyabinsk Branch forwarded 1.5 times more cargo in open-top railcars (aka gondola cars) in the eleven months of 2019 compared with the eleven months of 2018, First Freight Company’s press service reports.

The branch’s gondola car cargo turnover rose by 39% and reached 1.2bn tons.

According to the branch’s Director Gleb Gorbunov, the increase in Chelyabinsk branch’s output has to do with larger shipments of macadam coming from the key partners Cartel Promsnab, Energo-Alyans, and OM-TEK. The company also resumed cooperating with Kurganstalmost’s macadam business in Borisovo, Kurgan Region, and started handling more shipments of cement clinker from Katav Cement to Nevyansk Cement.

The shipments of building materials and industrial raw stuffs/molding materials doubled and reached 465,000,000 kg and 37,800,000 kg, respectively. The company’s flux materials shipments also rose by 39% and reached 217,000,000 kg; those of ferrous metals rose by 76% and reached 34,400,000 kg; and those of refractory goods rose by 11% and reached 42,000,000 kg.

‘Most of the cargo we handle gets forwarded around Russia. Our domestic market shipments increased by 48% and reached 925,000,000 kg in the eleven months of 2019. Western Siberia, the Urals, and the northern parts of the country proved the most popular shipment destinations,’ the press service says.

Exports rose by 2.5 times and reached 50,000,000 kg of cargo. The shipments mostly went abroad via ports in the North Caucasus as well as to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.