Russian tank container boom?

News-in-print 1 Apr 2017 by WCN Editorial

Russia’s United Wagon Company (UWC) has established Unicon 1520, a new rail freight company to provide tank container and general container shipments. Unicon 1520 will specialise in transport services and multimodal logistics of bulk, including hazardous cargoes in the 1,520mm broad gauge network, stated UWC.

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Tank containers for chemical, petrochemical freights and liquefied hydrocarbon gases, as well as container flat cars with increased load capacity, including those manufactured by railway holding UWC itself, will form the core of the new company’s fleet.

Unicon 1520 will provide shipping services both inside and outside Russia, in the CIS countries, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Dmitry Bovykin, first deputy CEO for general management at UWC, said: “We see a high potential of growth in container shipment, including transportation of bulk cargoes by tank containers. The creation of a specialised operator will only further promote flat cars with increased load capacity.”

Victor Ivanov, executive director at Unicon 1520, added: “If a freight owner chooses container shipments, they are offered a customised logistics solution, and can fully benefit from additional competitive advantages by saving the transhipment costs – these are zero – while having their cargoes reliably protected from contamination and the delivery terms respected.”

Market experts forecast a stable trend towards more containerisation of cargoes in segments with high write-off rates of tank cars within the next five years. Unlike a freight car, a tank container is more practical in terms of the range of cargoes that can be shipped. Therefore, said UWC, tank containers could be used to carry some 4.5 Mtpa of petrochemical freight currently shipped by other modes.

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This complete item is approximately 300 words in length, and appeared in the April 2017 issue of WorldCargo News, on page 12. To access this issue download the PDF here.