Ruscon launches intermodal flexitank service to Kazakhstan

Ruscon – multimodal subsidiary of the GCS-Group - has launched Russia’s first regular intermodal service to carry flexitank containers to Kazakhstan.
In the first quarter 2014, 40 containers arrived from Livorno, Italy at the port of Novorossiysk, but this number is expected to increase progressively over the next few years. From Novorossiysk, the containers are carried on Ruscon flat-car rail wagons into a bonded warehouse run by Kedentransservice in Mangyshlak, Kazakhstan. There the goods are customs cleared and transported by road more than 360 km to Bautino, a supply and logistics base for the off-shore oil industry in Kazakhstan’s sector of the North Caspian Sea and one of the largest producers of Kazakh oil.

On this launch service the flexitanks, carried in standard 20ft containers, contain drilling oil, but Ruscon is sure there is great potential to expand this service.
Ruscon also deals with the flexitanks after they are emptied, taking them to the toxic waste processing plant at Zhetibai (about 200 km from Bautino) for recycling.
Annual predicted volume – around 250-300 containers.

It is believed that that concept of through-intermodal transportation of liquids and bulk in containers equipped with flexitanks and liner bags to inland Russia and CIS will see growing use in the coming years as more investment flows to the raw-materials rich regions of Russia and Central Asia.