The first railway agroexpress with oat flakes travelled from Russia to India along the eastern route of the “North-South” International Transport Corridor via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran.
The multimodal shipment was organised by Russian Railways’ logistics operator RZD Logistics and Yuzhnouralsky Dry Port LLC (part of the State Transport Leasing Company Group).
31 twenty-foot containers were loaded with oat flakes from Russian manufacturer Uvelka and shipped from Formachevo station (South Urals Railway) to Sarakhs station (Turkmenistan) in transit through Kazakhstan. At the station of arrival the containers will be reloaded on the 1435 gauge and will pass through Iran to the port of Bandar Abbas and further by sea to the port of Mundra (India). The planned transit time to the port of destination is 35 days.
According to RZD Logistics, in the coming years the volume of agro-industrial cargoes transported along this transport corridor may reach 100,000 tonnes per year.
The Agroexpress service, which is oriented towards exporting Russian products to the PRC and East Asian countries, will get a new impetus due to the advantages of the eastern route of the North-South ITC. ‘Continuous rail connection with such countries as Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran via Kazakhstan, as well as additional prospects for organising freight traffic to the Persian Gulf and African countries give Russian exporters an opportunity to find alternative markets for their products,’ says Alexander Sivertsev, director for container transportation and agro-logistics at RZD Logistics.
