The National Development Fund of Iran (NDF) has allocated 80 million euros for the purchase of freight cars and locomotives, Eco News quoted the CEO of Sina Rail Transport Company as saying.
Mohammad Satei said the a shipping holding company, established by Mostazafan Foundation in 2012, is in charge of buying the railway vehicles. “The company is active in the fields of rail, road and maritime transport as well as port operations, and has 1,100 active fright cars, 600 of which belong to the company itself and 500 others are on lease,” he said.
Satei said that Sina Rail engineers have recently designed two container flatcars, which have been registered in the International Union of Railways (UIC). These include an open-top container suitable for minerals, iron ores and pellets and a top-container designed for carrying petrochemicals, which has a high level of safety and also ranks high in terms of environmental standards.
The main goal of Sina Rail is to provide the raw material required by South Steel Company in Bandar Abbas, which amounts to two million tons of pellets per year, Satei said.
“Our company aims to transport 1.6 million tons of cargo in 2014, and so far we have transported about 500 tons of minerals including coal, iron ore pallets and petrochemicals.”
Pointing out that the company also spends 10% of its capacity to import oil from Turkmenistan, he added, “We have set the goal to carry 10 million tons of raw materials to the South Steel Company by 2018, for which we would need 5,000 high-sided wagons.
NDFI Funds Wagon Purchase
“In the initial phase, 1,000 freight cars will be purchased through an 80-million-euro credit line provided by the National Development Fund of Iran,” Satei said.
He added that the wagons are to be purchased from Ukraine, and that the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (Raja) has approved their technical standards. “The administrative process is supposed to finish in the second half of this year and we shall start receiving the wagons from the beginning of next year (starting 21 March 2015),” he said.
In the second phase, Sina Rail is scheduled to buy 2,000 high-sided wagons from through special finances and a credit line opened by the Indian government, said Sate’i. “We are currently negotiating with the Central Bank of Iran, Raja and the government of India to assemble these wagons in the form of a joint project.”
“We have reached an agreement with Raja to purchase 100 locomotives from the company, Satei said, adding that the economic and technical feasibility plans for the purchase of locomotives has been submitted to Raja officials. “The train parts will be purchased from Germany, England, France and China,” he said.
Raja carries 33 million tons of minerals annually which must increase to 40 million tons. “In addition to a lack of sufficient train cars, the wagon unloading systems are not efficient, said Satei. “Therefore, we have proposed two wagon tipplers for unloading the wagons in Bandar Abbas, to be purchased using Chinese finance within a year.”
Caption: In the initial phase, 1,000 freight cars will be purchased from Ukraine through an 80-million-euro credit line provided by the National Development Fund of Iran.
