Hurricane Ike hit Sept US railcar chem traffic

02 October 2008 20:28  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--US chemical railcar shipments dropped by 12.1%, or 14,716 carloads, year-on-year in September, largely due to plant outages and supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Ike, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) said on Thursday.

 

“Hurricane Ike caused significant damage, both to rail infrastructure and to rail customer facilities on the Gulf coast, including many chemical facilities,” said AAR senior vice president John Gray. 

 

“And, of course, railroads and their customers are not immune to the upheaval in the general economy due to the credit crunch,” he added.

 

On a weekly basis, chemical shipments dropped 9.1%, to 28,748, for the seven days ended 27 September, compared with 31,626 carloads in the same period last year, marking the fourth steep decline in weekly shipments in a row.

 

The weekly rail shipment data is a good early indicator of current industry activity in US chemicals. Railroads transport more than 20% of the chemicals produced in the US.

 

Year to date through 27 September chemical shipments were still up 1.7% at 1.20m, from 1.18m in the year-ago period, the AAR said.

 

Railcar loadings for all 19 commodities categories tracked by the AAR declined by 62,029 carloads, or 4.6% in September, compared with September 2007.

 

For the week ended 27 September overall carloads were down 4.7% to 329,350, from 345,498 in the same week in 2007.

 

Year to date to 27 September overall railcar loadings for the 19 categories listed by the AAR were 12.7m, down 0.2% from the same period of 2007.

 

The ARR also said that chemical railcar traffic on Canadian railroads dropped by 8,328 carloads, or 14.0%, in September while overall Canadian rail carloads were down 21,195 carloads, or 6.6%, from September 2007.

 

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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