Belarusian Railways has good reserves for boosting oil transportation

Belarusian Railways has good technical reserves for ramping up the transportation of oil and oil products, First Deputy Director of Belarusian Railways Vladimir Mikhailyuk told reporters on 27 November, BelTA has learned.

According to experts, the railway transportation of oil and oil products will become much more popular due to Russia’s tax maneuver in the oil industry. Vladimir Mikhailyuk noted that Belarusian railways have a rather high throughput capacity; the company has enough oil cars. In case Belarusian Railways needs more oil cars, the company can ask Russian partners for help. Railway administrations of the two countries have already concluded relevant agreements.

On 27 November the Embassy of Belarus in Russia hosted a round table meeting. ”Belarus’ transit potential in organizing the transpiration of Russian foreign trade cargos”. Participants of the meeting noted that Belarus has developed a strategy to develop freight transit transportation to increase the cargo flows via Belarus. The strategy envisages flexible tariff policy, improvement of the legal framework, modernization of the railway infrastructure, application of modern railway technologies, optimization of the system to deliver foreign trade cargoes.

According to the representatives of Belarusian Railways, in January-October 2014 the company transported 117.3 million tonnes of cargoes, up 1.5% over the same period in 2013. The transportation of cargoes to Russia reached 49.1 million tonnes, up 2.8% as against January-October 2013.