OREANDA-NEWS. November 01, 2011. The volume of freight shipped to Russia’s ports by rail between January and September 2011 amounted to some 170 million tons, an increase of 3.8% over the same period last year, reported the press-centre of RZD.

Overall, commodity exports made up the bulk of shipments via Russia’s ports, accounting for 94-95% of the total.

Freight totalling 68.6 million tons was shipped through Russia’s North-West ports, including 199,000 Twenty-Foot Equivalent (TEU) containers, 56 million tons went via the ports of the Far East, including 129,700 TEUs, and 44.4 million tons through Russia’s southern ports, including 16,100 TEUs.

Shipment volumes are expected to increase to 360.1 million tons by 2015 and to 441.0 million tons by 2020.