United Wagon Company will deliver 100 tank cars (model 15-6880) to Metafrax, a leading Russian producer of methanol by the end of Q2 2019.
This is not the first time that Metafrax has acquired 15-6880 tank cars from UWC. The methanol producer currently has more than 400 1-T and Tpr tank cars in its rolling stock fleet. The decision to buy another lot of these cars from UWC was driven by their good operating performance.
The 15-6880 car equipped with a 25 t axle load bogie has an enhanced loading capacity of 73 tons and a tank capacity of 88 m3. These features allow for up to 2 tons of additional load per car compared to that of most railcars currently used on Russia’s railway network while keeping the length of the tank car within standard limits, which renders methanol transportation more efficient. A train of 80 UWC’s cars can carry 160 tons more of cargo than a train formed of non-UWC’s cars, which reduces both the size of the tank car fleet required for transportation and the cost of terminal operations. Extended maintenance intervals (up to 1 mln km of mileage or 8 years of operation) are an important competitive advantage of the 15-6880 tank car slashing the life-cycle costs by as much as almost three times.
Igor Chukreev,
Head of the Metafrax Transportation Directorate:
The business development strategy of our company targets major production and sales increases by 2030. Our investment budget specifically includes the cost of transport infrastructure improvement and phased renewal of the railway fleet. Metafrax chooses methanol tank cars made by UWC owing to their high-level performance.
