中文
China's key coal-dedicated artery Daqin railway registered a big fall in delivery that has reduced coal stockpiles at Qinhuangdao port, as a COVID-19 outbreak put many train staff in quarantine, market sources said.
On October 14, the line's daily shipment reached 700,000 tonnes, down 300,000 tonnes from a day earlier, sources noted.
This came due to a lack of train staff following a COVID-19 outbreak at Donghu rail station in Datong city, Shanxi province. A notice from Shanxi's epidemic prevention department said a total of 43 people were tested positive at the station, and the epidemic had already spread to other provinces along the railway.
Daqin's maintenance is still in progress, which is set to conclude in a week. The maintenance has pushed down its daily shipments to around 1 million tonnes from normal 1.2-1.3 million tonnes.
Due to the slump in Daqin's shipments, Qinhuangdao port, one of destinations of Daqin line, saw its coal inventory drop to 4.73 million tonnes, down 0.3 million tonnes at the end of September before the maintenance started. Coal railings to the port were recorded at 124,000 tonnes on October 15, down 252,000 tonnes from a day ago, and fell further to 93,000 tonnes on October 16, Qinhuangdao's data showed.
On October 15, China Railway urged in a meeting to maintain its daily traffic no less than 800,000 tonnes. After the meeting, CR Taiyuan Group, the subsidiary of China Railway and operator of Daqin line, immediately summoned hundreds of locomotive crew, pledging to keep the daily shipments above 1 million tonnes during the maintenance.
With the swift and effective response of CR Taiyuan Group, the impact of COVID-19 on Daqin's transport will be temporary and short-lived, market sources said.
(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Harry Huo)
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