North-Caucasian Railroad shows a 3% drop in volumes, 8.1m tons in Jan.-Feb.

Volumes of loaded commodities by the North-Caucasian Railroad (North-Caucasian branch of RZD, Russian Railways) in January-February 2010 declined compared to the same period last year by 3%, to 8.1 million tons. In February the NCR loaded 4 million tons of cargoes, a 12% drop from last year’s Feb., while Krasnodar branch showed a slight 1.3 percent rise, the North Caucasian Railroad statement said.

In January-February 2010 freight turnover rose by 7.4%, to 14.4 billion ton/km. This February the turnover has gained 1.6% over Feb.2009 and amounted to more than 7 billion ton/km.

Overall, in the two recent months the North Caucasian Railroad loaded 1 million tons of coal, up 6.4% from Jan.-Feb., 2009, 2.4 million tons of oil and petroleum products (+4.7%), 259,4 thousand tons (+12%) of ferrous metals, 57,2 thousand tons scrap metals, a 44.1 percent surge, 372.6 thousand tons of chemical and mineral fertilizers (+21.9%), construction of cargo - 1.8 million tons (+14.2%), chemicals and soda – 179.9 thousand tons (+1.8%).

In 2009 the volume of traffic on the North-Caucasian Railroad reached 64.468 million tons of cargo. North-Caucasian Railroad manages Rostov, Krasnodar, Mineralnyie Vody, Makhachkala and Grozny branches.