Аналитика

12.07.2017 RLL Container Report - 12 July 2017
It seems like only yesterday that I took the tram from Budapest city centre to Csepel to visit the site of the proposed Metrans container terminal on the banks of the River Danube. Back in September of last year when I visited the site, the first crane was being erected but none of the rail lines had been installed nor had any concrete been laid. Now, less than a year later, the 165,000 square metre rail container terminal can boast six tracks, each 650 metres in length plus two 500 metre tracks in the empty container stacking area. The new Metrans Hungarian terminal has a capacity of quarter of a million teu per annum, the equivalent of 250 train moves per month. The terminal is equipped with two portal cranes, two reachstackers as well as two other stackers that cater for empty containers. There is a Customs post on site, reefer plugs for the storage of perishable cargoes plus a container repair facility. In addition to road and rail traffic, there is a provision to add a terminal to cater for traffic on the Danube River.

05.07.2017 RLL Container Report - 05 July 2017
The past few months have seen a great deal of investment in container terminals by major chemical producers in both China and Russia. PetroChina is investing heavily in intermodal projects in the western province of Xinjiang and more particularly in Korla. This city is located some 4,000 km to the West of the main Chinese ports but only a short distance from the border crossing to Kazakhstan and the broad gauge rail system, which PetroChina intends to make full use of in order to supply its products to major clients in Germany and France. Looking for a European partner with experience in all aspects of intermodal shipments of liquid and dry chemicals, the Chinese have concluded a deal with Bertschi, a Swiss company with over 50 years’ experience in the transport and distribution of hazardous chemical products around the globe. Bertschi owns 29,000 transport units, 25 terminals as well as six tank cleaning stations and although it is located in a small town in Northern Switzerland and is family owned, last year the company reported a turnover of CHF 720 million. Clearly, the Swiss are doing something right. The plan is to establish a large and modern intermodal terminal in Korla, from where block trains can be despatched to major clients in Germany and France. Bertschi has already supplied 82 new tank containers to distribute petrochemical products to receivers in Europe.

10.05.2017 RLL Container Report - 10 May 2017
Together with “Terminal Azot”, TransContainer has commenced regular block train services from the Russian Far East to Povolzhye. Previously, cargoes from the Far East to the cities of the Volga Basin were first sent to Moscow, from where the cargoes were then delivered to their final destination. The routing via Moscow took up to 45 days, whereas the new, direct container service has reduced the transit time to a mere 8 to 9 days. Currently, Tolyatti acts as the distribution centre for a monthly train shipment of inbound boxes but the plan is to increase the frequency of trains to one per week, while at the same time expanding the number of receiving points, with Kazan next on the list.

03.05.2017 RLL Container Report - 03 May 2017
News that Iran will invest heavily in improving facilities at its main container port at Bandar Abbas will be welcomed in East Africa, where Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania are upgrading their own port and rail infrastructure to cope with higher volumes of containerised and bulk exports, not only to Iran but also to Russia, the CIS as well as to India. On the 12th of April, the President of Tanzania, John Magafuli announced that the construction of the third standard gauge rail line in the region, linking the port city of Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, will commence on the 5th of May. The 1 435 mm gauge single-track, electrified line is expected to open in October 2019.

19.04.2017 RLL Container Report - 19 April 2017
There is clear evidence that Europe is shrinking. On the 4th of April, I caught a flight from Skavsta, a provincial airport to the south of Stockholm, to Warsaw, where I had lunch in the Old Town before taking a connecting flight to Kutaisi in Georgia, arriving in time for a late supper. The new rail connection linking Iran with Istanbul and Europe will also shrink the continent as it runs from Teheran through Azerbaijan and then crosses into Georgia. The broad-gauge line passes between the capital Tbilisi and Rustavi before heading some 200 km to the west to the rail junction at Akhalkalaki. It is at this point that the containers are switched to a parallel standard gauge line that stretches 1,450 km West all the way to Istanbul. The metropolis on the Bosphoros, marks the hallway point between the Iranian capital and Europe’s inland intermodal super-hub at Duisburg.