Surge in goods from China strains Russia’s railway network

Discussion in 'Economics' started by ipatent, Oct 20, 2021.

  1. ipatent

    ipatent

    Surge in goods from China strains Russia’s railway network

    Explosive growth in sea shipping costs is prompting Chinese manufacturers to send more goods to Europe by rail across Russia, but the growth in demand is creating bottlenecks and straining network capacity.

    With countries frantically replenishing stocks and exporting finished goods as they recover from the pandemic, global sea ports are snarling up, making rail an attractive alternative.

    State monopoly Russian Railways said total container traffic transiting Russia jumped 40% in the first nine months of 2021 to 782,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit), and could hit a record 1 million TEU this year.

    “At the beginning of the year the cost of shipping goods in containers by rail between Asia and Europe was twice as low as by sea. Now it is 3.5 times (lower),” the rail company said.
     
  2. ipatent

    ipatent

    Wonder if there is an investment strategy here.
     
  3. nitrene

    nitrene

    Does Russian Railways trade on the Moscow Exchange? I've been long the RSX since the Nat Gas breakout. Today was the first day it really went down a lot -- NG & CL both down hard intraday.
     
  4. ipatent

    ipatent

    To get to Western Europe, it needs to go through Ukraine and Eastern Europe as well. With that kind of a price differential, looks like the basis for some decent investing.
     
  5. mervyn

    mervyn

    freight train doesn't go thru ukraine and go thru only two eastern europe countries (via belarus and poland), then into germany westwards, normally takes 4 weeks or less.
     
  6. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    What kind of customs inspections, and in which country do these cargo containers get checked?
    Common sense says the folks inspecting these things are short-handed af anyway.
    Now you have a 40% increase coming in via another route?!

    Not trying to derail the thread here, but that sure sounds like a huge new security risk for the EU.
    10's of thousands of containers coming from China and passing through Russia arriving at an understaffed point of arrival?!!
    Pfff... there's no telling what's hidden in those things.
    Not good.
     
  7. ipatent

    ipatent

    Is Polish Railways public?
     
  8. mervyn

    mervyn

    no everything posted security risk. same custom inspections as any other forms of transportation. They are standard containers as in cargo ships.
     
  9. mervyn

    mervyn

    i don't know. i don't trade european stocks.
     
  10. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    Well yeah lol, I'm aware that they're the same type of containers, and that where they arrive has been processing these things for years... but here's the thing: I'm gonna assume that just like every other operation in our current environment, especially government operations, that they are already shorthanded, and an unexpected 40% rise in incoming cargo at certain points of entry will severely tax their ability to maintain the same level scrutiny required for this type of stuff. Like I said... common sense.
    Determined bad actors will always find the weakest link in the chain.
    You've got one right here.
    Hopefully the worst that will happen will be the price of Fentanyl dropping in the EU.
    Just sayin....
     
    #10     Oct 23, 2021
    cobco likes this.