Timur Karabaev: Trans-Kazakh Transit from China Grows

07.12.2022

The head of the PTC Holding group of companies announced his intention to open a branch in China. According to him, this will allow the Kazakh company to work directly with shippers from China, using the capabilities of the transshipment terminal at the Dostyk station.

PTC Holding: from Rolling Stock to Own Terminals

PTC Holding is a diversified international dynamically developing group of companies in the field of railway rolling stock and infrastructure. The Holding carries out cargo transportation in the direction of Belarus, Georgia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China, Ukraine, Mongolia, Azerbaijan and the European Union. Last year, the volume of traffic of this company amounted to 14.1 million tons, this result was achieved both through its own fleet of rolling stock (more than 11.8 thousand units) and through the operating fleet (more than 14 thousand cars).

Last summer, the infrastructure of PTC Holding was replenished with a multifunctional cargo transshipment terminal at the Dostyk station with a capacity of 160,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent) per year. And already this summer, the second stage of the project was put into operation at this Dostyk TransTerminal site, which doubled the terminal’s capacity by half, up to 320,000 TEUs per year. This site allows for several hours to reload containers that arrived at the station in trains on a narrow gauge of 1435 mm from China, into trains on a wide gauge (1520 mm) — and in the opposite direction.

When «Draft» at the Station Becomes an Advantage

In 2021, PTC Holding quickly became convinced that the main factor holding back fast reloading is the tying of all terminals operating at Dostyk to the same railway station, which creates traffic jams that delay the departure of trains in the direction of Europe and Russia. In this regard, the investor, who plowed 6.1 billion tenge in the construction of the first stage of the terminal and 9.2 billion tenge in the construction of the second stage, foresaw the necessity to apply end-to-end technology at the Dostyk TransTerminal, which makes it possible to supply trains for unloading and loading autonomously from the main line.

Who Has Already Become a Client of Dostyk TransTerminal

All these advantages of the new terminal attracted the attention of many international and foreign companies: over the year, the largest amount of cargo through it (115 thousand TEUs) was transshipped under the projects of UTLC ERA — the Eurasian Railway Alliance of Kazakhstan, Russian and Belarusian Railways. Own projects of PTC Cargo, a subsidiary of PTC Holding that manages the terminal, assured transhipment of more 14,000 TEUs. The geography of PTC Cargo’s own projects, implemented in partnership with the Russian companies TransContainer and Logbox, is quite diverse: 9.4 thousand TEUs were sent to the Moscow railway junction during the year, 3.1 thousand TEUs to Europe, Uzbekistan — 1.3 thousand TEUs, another 0.2 thousand TEUs were Kazakh goods sent in containers for import during this year.

All infrastructure Was Built with Private Money

Dostyk TransTerminal, the connection to the railway line and the entire infrastructure were built with private money. The total investment in the project amounted to 23.5 billion tenge, or about $49 million. Projects such as Dostyk TransTerminal are an example of the right synergy of public and private investment in the development of logistics infrastructure.

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