Against the backdrop of declining loading on the railway network in 2025, the issue of concluding "ship or pay" agreements has become particularly relevant. Russian Railways (RZD) is confident that the carrier should not suffer losses when the shipper refuses a previously agreed application at the last moment, which happens quite often.
Over the past six months, 127.2 million tons of cargo have not been presented. This has led to lost revenue for Russian Railways of at least 200 billion rubles.
In June 2025, the total shortfall amounted to 22.4 million tons, of which about half (11.7 million tons) fell on the southern direction. This volume included 2.7 million tons of oil cargo, 2 million tons of construction materials, and 1.4 million tons of coal. Overall, loading on the Russian Railways network in June amounted to 89.3 million tons, which is 9.2% less than in the same period last year. In the first half of 2025, 554.5 million tons of cargo were shipped, which is 7.6% less than in the same period of 2024.
Despite general trends, fertilizer loading increased by 4.8% compared to the first half of 2024, mainly due to exports (+27.9%). There is also an increase in the transportation of coal (+2.3%) and non-coal cargo (+3.5%). However, demand in the domestic market reduced the loading of construction cargo (-19.7%), ferrous metals (-25.8%), and scrap metal (-31.8%).
Earlier www1.ru reported that Russian Railways will launch additional freight trains thanks to the HSR.
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