Ruscon, one of Russia’s leading intermodal transport operators, has launched Russia’s first regular intermodal service to carry flexitank containers to Kazakhstan. In the first quarter 2014, 40 containers arrived from Italy at the port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, but this number is expected to increase progressively over the next few years. From Novorossiysk, the containers are carried on Ruscon flat-car rail wagons into a bonded warehouse run by Kedentransservice in Mangyshlak, Kazakhstan. There the goods are customs cleared and transported by road more than 360 km to Bautino, a supply and logistics base for the off-shore oil industry in Kazakhstan’s sector of the North Caspian Sea and one of the largest producers of Kazakh oil.  On this launch service the flexitanks, carried in standard 20ft containers, contain drilling oil, but Ruscon is sure there is great potential to expand this service. “We believe that this concept of through-intermodal transportation of liquids and bulk in containers equipped with flexitanks and liner bags to inland Russia and CIS will see growing use in the coming years as more investment flows to the regions of Russia and Central Asia,” says Mrs Gulvira Duanakulova, who leads the Ruscon team in Kazakhstan. “Our service is very cost effective because it allows companies to order only the quantities they need and have it delivered exactly when they need it.”   Ruscon also deals with the flexitanks after they are emptied, taking them to the toxic waste processing plant at Zhetibai (about 200 km from Bautino) for recycling.  Ruscon, part of the Global Container Service (GCS) Group, handles over 200,000 TEU a year and also offers freight forwarding, storage, terminal handling and bonded trucking.