In May of the current year, total shipment volumes by Russian railway monopoly Russian Railways (RZD) increased by 3.5 percent year on year to 106.5 million mt. In the January-May period this year, total shipment volumes by RZD increased by 3.8 percent year on year to 516.9 million mt.
In particular, in the first five months of this year, Russian Railways' ferrous metal shipments decreased by 0.4 percent to 29.8 million mt, steel scrap shipments increased by 7.4 percent to 5.6 million mt, while coke shipments increased by 1.3 percent to 4.7 million mt and iron and manganese ore shipments went down by 1.1 percent to 45.2 million mt , all compared to the same period of 2016.