Ups and downs of Kotka port
In 2008, the Port of Kotka showed the second result among the Finnish ports having handled 11.6 million tonnes of cargo. The share of transit and export cargo exceeded 70% of the total throughput. Transshipment of containers amounted to 628,000 TEU, a 10-pct increase against the previous year, while transshipment of transit automobiles reached a record-breaking level in the 5-year period – 442,000 units (+27 %).
The port has always played an especially important role in the life of Kotka. Actually it was established 130 years ago to cater for the needs of the port. Nowadays stevedoring activities ensure direct and indirect occupation of over 5,000 people which accounts for 10% of the city population.
Modern Kotka consists of several harbors and districts. The oldest one is Kantasatama where sawn timber and project cargo is being handled. However this territory is being used mainly for different cultural events. In particular, museum and cultural center Vellamo is located here. Vellamo quay is a mooring place for museum vessels and guests’ yachts.
Two other districts – Hietanen Harbor and MussaloHarbor are multipurpose harbors with their own specialization.
Hietanen Harbor
State-of-the-art automobile terminal covering 100 hectares is located in Hietanen. Three leading automobile operators of Finland – Wallenius Wilhelmsen, SE Makinen and Avelon Group work there. Besides, ro-ro terminal handles export cargo of Finnish wood processing industry being delivered by regular services to the largest seaports of Europe.
It is the place where SECU carriers with containers owned by forest and paper concern Stora Enso arrive three times a week from Goteborg. One SECU can take three times as much cargo as a 40’ container. Such containers are used to carry paper from Finland to Sweden and automobiles backwards as transit to Russia.
Mussalo Harbor
Finland’s largest loose cargo terminal is located in Mussalo. It handles import components for Finnish paper industry. Besides, there is a container terminal here which is capable of handling 1 mln TEU. The terminal is serviced by three largest container operators – Steveco Oy, Finnsteve Oy and Multi Link Terminals. The Harbor’s Logistics area has 275,000 sq. Meters of covered and heated premises for filling, unfilling and storing of different cargoes.
There are regular liner services from Kotka to the following ports: Rotterdam, Hamburg, Lubeck, Antwerp, Bremen, Amsterdam and Bremerhaven. Feeder vessels of Team Lines, Maersk-Sealand, Team-Lines, Unifider, CMA-CGM, Combsped and OOCL enter the port with the frequency of up to 3 times per week.
The majority of the Baltic ports handle vessels with the capacity of up to 650 TEU, while Kotka managed to handle Maersk Buffalo (4,300 TEU) loaded with empty containers though.
On the average the port unloads about 330 containers from a vessel with the same quantity being loaded onboard. It takes about 15 hours which actually means 44 handling operations per hour. As a rule, two cranes participate in handling, each capable of doing 20-25 operations per hour. This certainly means high efficiency of work, which was demonstrated by Finnish stevedores last year.
Apart from the above facilities, there is a petrochemical terminal in Mussalo. The capacity of its tank farm is 241,000 cubic m. The terminal is designed to store and handle wide range of petrochemical products. The terminal is operated by Vopak and Oiltanking. Major cargo being handled by the terminal is Russian petrochemical products.
Unfortunately, last year seems to be a swan song of the port as the global financial crisis of 2009 resulted in a 28-pct fall of throughput in the 4-month period. However it is fair to say the majority of the Baltic ports failed to escape it.
The bulk of impact falls on containers and automobiles – 34-pct and 75-pct decrease respectively. In 2008 Hietanen Harbor used to dispatch 250 car carriers per day while this year it hardly makes 80. Over 2-fold decline of demand for foreign cars in Russia resulted in accumulation of over 30,000 automobiles in Kotka alone.
The port is packed to capacity with automobile equipment. Automobile concerns bear fundamental losses as they have to pay for above-norm storage while the port is not satisfied, to put it mildly.
The container terminal faces similar situation. The demand for import goods has considerable reduced in Russia which has a negative impact on the terminal loading. The majority of storage facilities are empty.
Only export of dry loose and liquid bulk cargo exudes optimism (+147% and 3.8% respectively). However it unfortunately cannot compensate for the general fall of cargo traffic.
Meanwhile Finnish ports are optimistic about their future hoping to find new prospective lines of development. The advantage of the stevedores is their vast experience in search for new ways of diversification of port activities.