RZD upgrades important terminal for INSTC traffic
RZD will allocate 400 million rubles (roughly 4,4 million euros) to upgrade the Volzhsky rail freight terminal in the Volgograd region. The terminal’s modernisation will include lengthening the crane runway and expanding the container area. The Russian company expects capacity to increase 1,7 times to 561 TEU. The works explicitly aim to enhance traffic handling on the International North-South Trasport Corridor (INSTC).
According to RZD, the terminal’s development is “for the INSTC” since a significant amount of the corridor’s volumes are processed there. Volzhsky is located in a region close to the border with Kazakhstan and near the Caspian Sea and the Kaukasus region. Consequently, it can play an important role in handling volumes from all three different routes of the INSTC.
Plans for growth all over
The plans go hand-in-hand with the latest statements from RZD and the Russian government that pledged to grow the INSTC immensely in the near future. For instance, Vladimir Putin stated during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) a few days ago that Russia aims to double export freight volumes through the corridor by 2025 and to triple them by 2030.
Oleg Belozerov, the head of RZD, announced at the same forum that rail transportation on the corridor during the first five months of 2023 amounted to 4 million tons, showing a 42 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. Container traffic over the same period reached almost 20 thousand TEUs, four times higher than in 2022.
The target for INSTC is to reach 35,4 million transported tons per year, but this mainly refers to mixed road and rail traffic. Rail traffic for 2022 amounted to 9 million tons of cargo. Nevertheless, the Russians aim for the moon regarding plans expecting the INSTC to reach and exceed 100 million tons. However, when and how is still unclear.
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