OJSC First Freight Company (PGK), Russia's leading freight operator, shipped 31.2 million tonnes of freight in the first half of 2008, the company said in a statement according to Interfax.
PGK began operating late last year.
In the first half it carried 10.3 million tonnes of petroleum cargo, 8.7 million tonnes of hard coal, 6.7 million tonnes of cement, 2.1 million tonnes of construction freight, 1.7 million tonnes of ores, 0.6 million tonnes of iron and steel, and over 1.2 million tonnes of other freight.
Domestic shipments accounted for 21.1 million tonnes, exports for 9.5 million tonnes, imports for 0.5 million tonnes and transit for 0.1 million tonnes.
Russian Railways (RZD) (RTS: RZHD) owns 100% of PGK. The company was formed in July 2007 with charter capital of 86.6 billion rubles. PGK began to independently operate its train car fleet in November. The company currently owns over 200,000 cars: 75,000 tanker cars, 47,000 open boxcars, 15,000 flatcars, 14,300 boxcars and about 49,000 cars of other types.