Customers of the Fesco transport group, who transported goods only through the Suez Canal, requested an alternative route – from Asia to Europe in transit through Russia. The vice-president for the line-logistics division of the company, German Maslov, told the journalists about this.
“We already see requests from customers who previously carried only this way, through the Suez Canal, and now they are looking at alternative transportation of goods from Asia in transit to Europe through Russia,” Maslov said, adding that Fesco is working on this route.
According to Maslov, transportation can be organized both through Russian overland border crossings and using a multimodal scheme: from Japan, South Korea and other countries of the Asia-Pacific region by sea. Further, transshipment takes place in the port of Vladivostok and the cargo is sent to Europe by rail.
“Fesco alone sends 30-35 container trains weekly. The infrastructure of Russian Railways, despite the hard work, is coping with the growing freight traffic,” Maslov said.
Fesco is now expanding capacity on its shipping lines and rail routes. As Maslov noted, this applies to both the capacity of the vessels and the number of fitting platforms that the company is putting into operation for the increasing cargo traffic.
“Now we have a historic record for the volume of containers that we ship – more than 80 thousand TEU. Never in the history of the company have there been such volumes of a container fleet. This reflects the growing demands of customers for transportation across Russia,” Maslov said.
The container ship Ever Given – owned by the Japanese company Shoei Kisen and operated by Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corporation – ran aground on March 23 at the 151st kilometer of the Suez Canal en route from China to Rotterdam. The ship is 400 meters long, 59 meters wide, and has a carrying capacity of about 224 thousand tons.
As a result of the incident, traffic was blocked on one of the busiest sea trade routes in the world. At least 100 ships are awaiting their turn.
The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas, is 163 kilometers long. It accounts for 10-12% of the world sea freight turnover. The canal is used daily by dozens of ships that travel from Europe to Asia and back, without making a long voyage around Africa.
Discussion about this post