The First Half of the Year: Proprietors Begin and Win
10.08.2009 (16:01)
Statistics show that, so far, proprietors keep holding their positions and are suffering much smaller losses than OAO RZD and its affiliated companies, despite the fact that all independent transport companies have had to face all of the well-known financial problems connected with the crisis.
We should like to remind readers that today the share of the public park has reached 40 %, operators have exactly the same share, and 20 % are the railcars of RZD’s affiliated companies. OAO RZD’s and its affiliated companies’ losses became visible when the results of this year’s first quarter were posted, where the general fall in traffic was 28.3%, their volumes were reduced by 38.6%, and private companies’ transportations were reduced by only 11.6%. When the half-year results were posted, these parameters practically did not change. It sounds from the RZD voiced data that private operators, who currently own 40% of the rolling stock letting market (or general park), have lowered cargo volumes by 11% in comparison with the six months of 2008, and the holding group, together with its affiliated and dependent companies, which owns a total of 60 % of the market, have lost 37%, i.e. practically twice more. The majority of experts consider that this is because of better services provided by the private companies and their more flexible marketing policies. As the representative of one company-operator noted, "clients choose mobility".
As a result, in the first half of 2009 loading in the public park was 30.9%, and in the private park 67.1 % (the share of independent operators in this number is two third of this volume, affiliated companies have one third, basically due to First Cargo Company). 52% less cargo than in the similar period of last year was loaded on RZD’s wagons; and 8% more than last year were loaded on private rolling stock.
Simultaneously, this year many operators, which used to report increases in their transported cargo volumes with pleasure, have taken the position of not disclosing their operational results. This makes sense because while RZD has reasons to loudly complain about the crisis in the hope for State support, private companies have never had the chance so far to obtain such help successfully. Those operators, who voice their results most willingly, deal with the movement of oil, a cargo which has suffered least of all. Thus, OOO "BaltTransService" has increased volumes in comparison with 2008 by 17.7 %, adding each month to the level of the respective period of last year from 1.8 up to 27.5 % (in May). OOO "Thermal Power Station "Eurotrans" has added 4.7 % for the first half of 2009 in comparison with 2008.
As regards RZD’s affiliated companies, here the best semi-annual result (and it is the only positive one) is certainly at First Freight. By the way, the main gain of this company is that the share of coal transported in its own rolling stock is currently growing (97 % for the half-year). After First Freight’s park was increased by the transfer to it of RZD’s wagons, and new ones were purchased, it shipped 1.5 times more cargoes in the first half of 2009, than for the similar period last year. As a result, the share of this company in the total amount of cargo moved on RZD’s network already exceeds 20 %.
TransContainer’s results are called in the holding group ‘satisfactory’. Cargo volumes transported in large-capacity containers on flat wagons have fallen by only 12 %, while other operators falling figures have reached 36 %. Simultaneously, the container transport markets share which was mastered by TC has grown from 61 up to 66 %. Volumes were considerably reduced, and offers to let rolling stock from other operators have grown, therefore TransContainer’s main problem in such conditions of sharpened competition is to search for ways to increase transport efficiency.
RZD’s other affiliated company, RailTransAvto, has lowered its transport volumes in the first half of 2009 by 38 %. However, despite this general fall OAO RTA has managed to increase its share in the movement of cars by rail to 80 %. OAO RefService is also not in the best of situations. The main reason for its losses has been drastic changes in the environment: falling volumes of perishable cargoes transported and the transfer of 40 % of cargoes from this company to the wagons of their proprietors and the cargo owners (OAO Baltica and others) took place as a result of the fact that they were referred to the group of Isothermal Wagon-Thermoses.
As was noticed with RZD, not the best of situations has developed at ZAO Russian Troika too, where transport volumes shrank by more than three-fold in the first half of the year. The company was affected considerably by the financial crisis which caused a serious fall in the number of containers transported (both in export-imports and on domestic routes). The growing competition among flat wagon operators and the aggressive actions of sea port owners to limit private operators’ access to their container flows have also had a negative impact on this company’s activity in a shrinking railway container transport market.
Generally, the economic crisis has strengthened the existing tendency of the last few years to increase the private operators’ shares in the total amounts transported. It is quite possible that this tendency will remain until the end of the year, and this is something for not only RZD to think about, but for its affiliated companies too. At the same time, all transport agencies who work with the railways, irrespective of whom they belong to, and no matter at what competitive level they are, have the same overall aim - to attract cargoes to the railways. And for this to happen, a search for common decisions and approaches is necessary. Otherwise the tendency which has just appeared visible to change the transport structure not in the favour of the railways can grow into something more serious.
Nadezhda Vtorushina
The full version of this article is in RZD-Partner ¹ 15