Wild schemes and projects

The crisis year has left its traces on port projects - not all plans announced by companies or the government have been implemented in the past year. Several transshipment port complexes of total capacity of 54 million tons had to be put into operation in 2009. This statement was made by Igor Levitin, Transport Minister, speaking at the Duma in April last year. The real number of new facilities for freight handling, according to the "PortNews" IAA was just at 70 percent of the plan.

The official also reminded the plans to commission in 2009 an oil complex at the port of Prigorodnoye and Vanono coal terminal. At least 16.9 billion rubles have been allocated in the federal budget for these projects. Private businesses were expected to invest 79.3 billion rubles.

North-West lights

Particularly, according to the head of the transport department the construction of a road-railway-ferry complex and the oil terminal should have been completed in 2009 in the port of Ust-Luga.

Road-railway-ferry complex in 2009 provided a regular service twice a week. Last year a ferry route to Germany was opened to have achieved this year its projected annual capacity at 2.9 million tons. Nevertheless, the automobile component of the complex was not finished at all. In addition, Ust-Luga OJS Company was planning to combine the complex into a single technological chain with its own Ro Ro terminal of multi-cargo complex "South-2 ", which also has not happened as yet.

As Valery Izrailit, the president of Ust-Luga JSC has recently said, the integration would allow improving the management of investments. "Technically there are no obstacles, because those projects are technologically correlated, as well in infrastructure, as geographically", the chairman of the board of directors of Ust-Luga is quoted as saying.

Rosneftbunker JSC (controlled by Gunvor the Swiss trader) has been constructing a liquid cargoes handling terminal at the port of Ust-Luga. The building complex is one of Russia's largest oil terminals, designed for storage and shipment of export crude oil, as well as diesel fuel, fuel oil, gasoline and gas condensate. The projected depth at berths will allow handling 120-ton tankers. Nevertheless, the commissioning has been postponed for the first half of 2010. As of now, the terminal’s first stage of an annual 7-million-ton capacity has been scheduled in the spring of 2010.

Just to remind, in August, Konstantin Hamlay, general director of Rosneftbunker announced the terminal was to start operating by late December, 2009. At the time, the loading of the first ship at the terminal was supposed to begin on December 26. It is not clear as yet, why the delay occurred.

Besides, in 2009, an approach canal to the port of Ust-Luga was reconstructed. It was enlarged to 180 m in width and to 16 m in depth. On December 29 the canal was commissioned and the port is now able to accept ships of 13.7-m draught, and with a favorable weather - up to 14.5 m. The reconstruction of the canal was carried out under the contract with Rosmorrechflot and Rosmorport, at the expense of the federal budget.

East-bound oil and gas pour in

However, the government plans over Far Eastern brand new export oil port became a reality in the last days of the year - a complex for oil transshipment in the Bay of Kozmino (Primorsky Krai / Territory).The first shipment of oil from the terminal to tankers came December 28, 2009. Since the beginning of 2010, as of January 20, 5 tankers have been handled at the specialized marine oil port in the Bay of Kozmino. Each tanker shipments totaled 100.000 tons of oil. Total YTD 500.000 tons of export oil have been shipped. Since December 28, 2009, the launching of the trunk oil pipeline "Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean”, the berth of Spetsmornefteport has seen oil tankers from Libya, Pacific Energy, twice - Moscow University and Ashahda.

The Port has been designed to handle 80.000-ton - 150.000-ton ships. The first ship moored in 2010 was a 150.000-ton Libya-flagged tanker a maximum for the port’s berths. In the coming days, the port will be accepting 100.000-ton Atlantic Explorer and Sky Lady tankers. That may boost the volumes of transshipment of this calendar month up to 700.000 tons.

On February 18, 2009 Sakhalin Energy refinery was put into operation. It is intended to process gas of "Sakhalin-2 project, shipped through the 800-km pipeline to the plant at Prigorodnoye in the southern Sakhalin. The annual plant’s capacity is said to be 9.6 million tons of LNG. The liquefied natural gas will be transported from the refinery by tankers of capacity to carry 18.000-145.000 cubic meters of LNG. The port in Prigorodny began operating in May 2009.

As to the Vanino Port’s coal terminal (Bay Muchke, Khabarovsk Territory) of projected throughput capacity at 12 million tons a year, it failed to start last year, the question is left open. For its completion in late December, Siberian Coal Energy Company, the project investor obtained a 1.5-billion-ruble loan at Vnesheconombank.

The port of Vanino will be largely transshipping coal from SUEK deposits and coal supplied by other companies to be exported to the Asia-Pacific Region (APR). Vanino port is believed to have become the major coal port in the Far East and the second largest port in Russia. It has been projected to handle 170.000-ton ships.

Sophia Vinarova