OREANDA-NEWS. Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL), one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, reports consolidating shipments of the Group's products within its subsidiary Mecheltrans. This will enable the company to cut overall transport costs, improve the logistics of shipments both by its own and outsourced wagons. This will create additional opportunities for increasing revenue from product sales for the Group's enterprises.

Mecheltrans will oversee rail shipments of all of the Group's products (including by open cars, covered wagons, containers, tank cars, flat wagons, hopper wagons, specialized vehicle stock) with further transshipment in ports and delivery to end customers by internal river routes in Russia and Europe, by sea and by truck. Before, several of Mechel's enterprises made separate contracts with third-party transport companies to ship their products.

Consolidating the company's freight traffic enabled Mechel to cut transport costs by 3-10% depending on freight type. In 2013, Mecheltrans expedited some 42 million tonnes of cargo, including 16 million tonnes of exports.

"Consolidating all of Mechel's freight traffic in a transport operator that is part of the Group's structure is a timely and logical measure which will help improve management of our logistical supply chains. Making the Group's products more competitive - particularly the products of our steel segment - is another task that we solve by consolidating our shipments," Mecheltrans Management Company OOO's Chief Executive Officer Alexey Lebedev commented.