Russian Railways has been instructed in September to cut coal transportation to its second largest coal port Ust-Luga by 80% to facilitate higher grain exports. Russia is now in a position of picking which of its starving industries live and which die .
Russian Railways is planning on decreasing the transportation of coal to the Oktyabrskaya Railway by 80%. This is the railway section that covers St Petersburg and Leningrad region. This was discussed at a meeting in the Ministry of Transport in September. The reduction of the shipments of coal to the Baltic ports is being considered due to the demand for the usage of the ports for the transhipment of other types of cargo. The meeting minutes show increases of the loading of Oktyabrskaya Railway by cargo from the North Caucasus Railway by 715%, the South-Eastern Railway by 27%, the Volga Railway by 39%, the Kuibyshev Railway by 42% and the South Ural Railway by 66%. The goal is to ensure the shipment of 100% of the export of goods that have priority under the Non-Discriminatory Access Rules. In this case it's to stimulate the export of grain via this route. The Oktyabrskaya Railway is the second largest destination for coal after the Far East. For Q1-Q3 2026 coal shipments via the Baltic ports rose by 8,4% to 31,7 million tons. For the Russian Far Eastern Ports the increase was 11,1% to 84 million tons. For the southern ports the increase was 5,7% to 14,1 million tons. Coal as the least profitable and most shipped cargo for Oktyabrskaya Railway is the most likely to be cut but the issue is that this will hurt coal exports and overall coal production. The shipments of coal that were intended for October could be 2-3 million tons and currently the 80% that are to be cut have nowhere to go in practice. Shipping to the Far East has the issue that the infrastructure there is already operating at capacity and queues can form. It's also planned to reduce the shipments of Kazakhstan coal to the Russian Baltic ports. Russian Railways has not approved any demand for Kazakh transit coal to the Baltic ports for the month of October. In 2022 Russian Railways did this for Kazakh coal but had to resume shipping it so that it didn't compete with Russian exports via the Russian Far East to China. In 2025 the EU made an exception to its sanctions on Ust Luga in the cases when Kazakh coal was being shipped. In November 2025 in his visit to Russia the Kazakh president signed an intergovernmental agreement that covered cooperation in the field of transit rail transportation and cargo transshipment when such cargo is bound for third countries. Thus in H1 2026 Kazakh oil transit through Russia rose by 37% to 6,7 million tons. Before the closure of the Russian Black Sea ports Kazakhstan exported 60% of its coal though Ust-Luga and 1/3rd through Taman. For Jan-Jul 2026 4,7 million tons of Kazakh coal were exported through Ust-Luga and 2,6 million through Taman. It's unlikely that it will be easy for Russia to fully deny the transportation of Kazakh coal as intergovernmental treaties have priority. However Russian Railways can impose hurdles to make it difficult for Kazakh producers to ship like saying only coal in Russian railway carriage is allowed. Source: kommersant.ru
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