General Director of Northern Sea Shipping Company Alexander Bryntsev: "Our advantage - experience in the Arctic"

Northern Shipping Company is one of the oldest transport companies in Russia. This year, the shipping company has celebrated its 142nd anniversary. In an interview with PortNews General Director of JSC Northern Shipping Company Alexander Bryntsev told about the company’s human resources, about the problems it is tackling and the tasks it set out to accomplish.

- Alexander, what volume and types of cargo have been transported in 2011 year?

- Last year turned out to be stressful and difficult, uneven, but despite all this, and thanks to the efforts applied, the result was the affirmative. Net income totaled to 13.8 million rubles.

Revenues generated by dredging, service and support fleet and shore facilities were also high. Overall, we have transported (excluding time charters) 1,469,600 tons of freight for the period. In 2011, our fleet was operating in the following segments: the transportation of forest industry products of Arkhangelsk region and the Baltic region, shipping of steel products and raw materials of leading domestic steel production companies and carriage of fertilizers of both domestic and foreign manufacturers, and other dry bulk and general cargoes. The fleet of Northern Sea Shipping Company serves regular line from Arkhangelsk to the continent (the ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremen), from St. Petersburg to the continent (the ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, Rotterdam), and from St. Petersburg to Le Havre. There were seven vessels deployed on the routes that were carrying bulk cargo, conventional and dangerous goods in 20’ and 40’ containers.

- How many ships are now in operation of the company?

- As of October 2012 the fleet of Northern Sea Shipping Company comprises 21 transport ships, 5 dredging vessels and three tugs and seven vessels are time chartered. The total deadweight of Northern Sea Shipping is more than 120,000 tons.

Generally, our vessels have ice class L 1, some ships feature reinforced ice class, enabling the company to be a major year-round carrier at the port of Arkhangelsk and work successfully during winters in the ports of Scandinavia and the Gulf of Finland.

The transport fleet of our company includes multipurpose ice class dry cargo ships having deadweight 2,657 or 14,200 tons. The ships transported export sawn lumber and other processed wood products from the port of Arkhangelsk, general and bulk cargoes, dangerous goods, oversized and heavy lift cargo, containers between foreign and Russian ports.

- How would you evaluate the shipping company performance for the past nine months of 2012 compared to the 2011’s numbers

- Our pre-tax income for the nine-month period soared four times compared to the same period last year. The volume of work performed by our dredging fleet increased - by 2.5 times, by tug fleet - 1.6 times.  Northern Sea Shipping has adopted a number of measures to cut costs and improve the efficiency of work and services: constant cost control of the fleet and that of shore facilities, cost optimization, reducing vessels unproductive downtime.

Fuel costs are major costs for transportation, and therefore all measures should be taken to reduce it. One such measure is the use of additives to heavy oil fuel. We, at NSSCo initiated and actively promoted the use of fuel additives. Our experience has proved that its utilization besides the fuel economy, resulted in better performance characteristics of assemblies and mechanisms of our ships, reduces the risk of emergency shutdowns of engines. The shipping company has also introduced an automated system of daily monitoring of fuel consumption by the company’s ships. The system has helped significantly reduce the cost of fuel, but without reducing the operational performance of the fleet.

During the nine months of 2012 we continued our work, we began in 2011 to improve profitability and optimize expenditures of shore facilities of the shipping company. As a result, all units are self-sufficient.

There is another important point. Today, Northern Sea Shipping has no large outstanding debts to banks. We are able to spend revenues not for interest payments and repayment of credits, but for the modernization and renewal of production assets, in the first place - of the vessels.

- Have you launched any new shipping lines (transportation regions), where your ships were operating this year?

- More precisely, after a break, for the last two years we have resumed sailings to the East sector of the Arctic. In 2011, the M/V Pioneer of Moldova delivered from Norway to Sakhalin along the Northern Sea Route the oversized cargo – a manifold weighing 407 tons for the Sakhalin-3 project. So, last year and this year, our vessels resumed sailings Tiksi, Dudinka and Pevek ports.

- Could you tell us more about your operations in the Arctic since it has been a very important direction in Northern Shipping Company...

- Our company, one might say, has always worked in the North. For obvious reasons, there was a decline in short sea traffic in the 90s. The revival began in early 2000s. Business returned to the North, it's been clearly seen in the last few years, although coastal trade on the shipping lane can’t reach the Soviet era volumes. Last year, two vessels of our company, the m/v Tekhnolog Konyukhov and the m/v Pioneer of Karelia delivered to the polar port Tiksi hydrometeorological equipment for installation of a weather monitoring station, in September, it was a real Arctic voyage, when the m/v Pavel Korchagin visited Franz Josef Land, Cape Zhelaniya, Solnechnaya Bay, Dixon, Belushya Bay, small islands in the Arctic Ocean - the places where hundreds of people live and work. During the navigation season our tugboats worked perfectly in the Arctic: the Nord and the Triton. Their destinations: Dixon, Dudinka, Baydaratskaya Bay, Tixi and Murmansk.

This year shipping season in the Arctic has been busy as well. For the fifth year, our vessels have been transporting concrete pipes to to Baydaratskaya Bay of the Kara Sea for the construction of a gas pipeline where our dredge Dvinsky Zaliv has operated, making the trenches for laying pipeline. This summer, the M/V Johann Mahmastal delivered cargoes for a mining company in Yakutia’s Anabar.

Last August, a long-term State program for the environmental rehabilitation of the Franz Josef Archipelago was launched from Arkhangelsk: our M/V Tekhnolog Konyukhov delivered heavy off-road vehicles, tractors and garbage trucks. And in October, the M/V Pavel Korchagin and the M/V Ivan Ryabov the first cargo of scrap metal from Franz Josef Land.

In September 2012, the ice-class tug Nord performed a unique naval operation i.e. towing of the Pyramida facility from Arkhangelsk to Svalbard, and brought back a tugboat Anatoly Belikov to a ship repair base. Three ships of our company are now transporting steel sheet piles to the area in the Ob Bay, where the new Sabetta port has been under construction, while Pavel Korchagin is operating in Dudinka.   

- Operations in severe arctic conditions require modern fleet of reinforced ice-class...

- Just the other day we’ve expanded our fleet with modern multipurpose vessel of enhanced ice-class – the M/V Engineer Trubin. On October 17, a ceremonial Russian flag hoisting was held on board the ship. The vessel is now under the supervision of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS). This ice-class vessel is one of the few ships capable of operating year-round in the Arctic, to offload cargo to unequipped shore and the ice pier. The M/V can safely operate year-round delivering sawn lumber, pulp and paper products from the ports of Northern Europe, the Baltic, and, of course, Arkhangelsk. Deadweight of the M/V Engineer Trubin is more than 7,000 tons and such a vessel is in demand in the shipping market. The ship is equipped with good modern cranes, able to handle up to 25 tons of cargo. The ship also meets the latest environmental and energy-saving requirements, has a high-class automation. All these are obvious advantages of our replenishment. In November we will take delivery of the same series vessel.

Today, the shipping business, as well as the global economy, are affected by the global financial crisis. But even at this time, we can offer our charterers competitive prices. And our shipping company, in spite of all the difficulties, feels itself confident and competitive in the global shipping market.

Creation of Northern Sea Shipping Company at the time was historically predetermined by the development of the productive forces of the North European part of Russia, the need to ensure transport and utilization of the rich natural resources of the region and the strategic objective to strengthen the north-western borders of the country. We now have everything to preserve and develop the position of Northern Sea Shipping Company in the market, work steadily in the future.

Interviewed by Albert Sventitsky.