The Mining Association of Canada | The Canadian Mining Story: Economic Impacts and Drivers for the Global Energy Transition 2023 18 facilities. For more than a decade, crude and processed mineral products have made up more than half of the total freight volume transported by rail in Canada. In 2021, the total freight volume was 284.6 million tonnes, of which 126 million tonnes was crude minerals and 28.9 was processed minerals. As a result, crude and processed minerals made up 54.4% of the total freight volume. Costs for shipping by rail have increased substantially since 2021. The Federal Rail Service Price Index tracks price changes for the mainline freight rail industry. Costs are compared to a reference year (2018), which is assigned a value of 100. For all commodities, rail prices have increased by 29.1% since 2018. For metals and minerals, prices have increased even more, by 31.4%. Prices remained relatively stable until the middle of 2021, when they began to increase dramatically. In Canada, freight rail is primarily handled by only two Class I railways: CN and CP. Of the $16.5 billion in total industry revenues in 2020, CN and CP were responsible for more than 93%. Communities and businesses are often captive, served by only one of these companies, which gives rail customers little or no competitive choice, and gives the railways market power over their customers. Road Trucking also plays an important role in moving mining products. Trucks move mining products frommines to production facilities and customers, and deliver mining supply inputs to mine sites, such as fuel for operations. Mining sites that do not have access to rail rely on truck and marine shipping for these essential materials. As with rail transport, trucking prices rose dramatically in 2021 and 2022. The for-hire motor carrier freight services price index is based on a comparison of current trucking Figure 7: Freight Rail Service Price Index13 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 Freight Rail Services Price Index: 129.1 Apr. 18 Oct. 18 May 19 Dec. 19 Jun. 20 Jan. 21 Jul. 21 Feb. 22 Aug. 22 Mar. 23 Metals and minerals: 131.4 13 Statistics Canada, Freight Rail Services Price Index, monthly table 18-10-0212-01.
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