Monthly rail carloadings of coal, steel and iron ore concentrate all increased in Canada month-on-month in December, Kallanish learns from the latest data collected by Statistics Canada.

December freight loadings of coal measured 3.32 million tonnes moved. This is up 13.5% on-month, but down 5.0% year-on-year.

According to the agency's report, December shipments of primary/semifinished steel increased by 6.6% m-o-m. The volume came in at 375,523t, down 14.4% y-o-y.

Freight carloadings of iron ore concentrate increased 13.7% m-o-m in December. Iron ore concentrate shipments came in at 5.12mt, which is up 6.8% compared with the same period last year.