MOSCOW, July 19. /TASS/. Freight loading volumes on the network owned by Russian Railways and dispatched to Russian seaports for export in the first half of 2023 amounted to 170.9 mln tons, which is 2.4% higher than in the same period of last year, the press service of Russia’s railroad monopoly reported on Wednesday.

"Various cargoes totaling 66.4 million tons were dispatched to Russia’s ports in the North-West, an increase of 4.7%, 57.9 million tons to the ports in the Far East, up 3.2%, and 46 .7 million tons to the ports in the South, down 1.4%," the report said.

Shipments of grain to ports increased 2.7 times to 6.6 million tons, chemicals and soda were up 1.4 times to 1.2 million tons, fertilizers gained 5.7% to 11.2 million tons, while coal rose by 5.1% to 93.5 million tons.

Shipments of coal (up by 19.3% year-on-year to 29.7 mln tons) and fertilizers (up by 6.4% to 9.4 mln tons) were the main drivers behind the growth in loading volumes dispatched to the ports in the North-West, the holding said.

"In addition to coal, whose volumes increased by 5% to 48.1 million tons, the transportation of oil cargoes for export from the sea terminals in Russia’s Far East was up 7.4% to 3.4 million tons, chemicals and soda jumped by 9.2 times to 380,700 tons and grain saw an increase of 7.2 times to 74,300 tons," according to the report.

That said, most grain was dispatched to the ports in South Russia, with volumes increasing by 2.7 times to 6.5 million tons. Fertilizers and chemicals transported to South Russia rose by 2.3% to 1.8 million tons and by 29.2% to 345,000 tons, respectively.

"With regard to export cargoes, coal accounted for 54.7% of the total, followed by oil cargo on 21.5% and fertilizers on 6.6%, ferrous metals (5%), grain (3.9%) and ores (1.7%)," Russian Railways said.