Secretary-General of IMO believes in a great future of Vostochny Port (photo)
Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), visited Vostochny Port JSC, Russia’s largest dedicated coal port (run by Port Management Company) and highly praised its technical state and measures focused on improvement of environmental safety, says PMC.
A day earlier, Mr Kitack Lim took part in the work of the Tokyo MoU Committee in Vladivostok.
That is the first visit of Mr Kitack Lim to the Russian Federation since he was elected IMO Secretary-General in 2015.
During his visit to Vostochny Port Mr Kitack Lim was accompanied by Vitaly Klyuyev, Director of RF Transport Ministry's Department of State Policy for Maritime and River Transport, Yury Kostin, Deputy Head of Rosmorrechflot, and top officials of the Sea Ports Administration.
Yevgeny Arekhta, Chief Engineer of Vostochny Port JSC, familiarized the delegation with the work of the specialized equipment for coal transshipment at Vostochny Port – reclaimers, stackers, closed rail car dumpers, ship loading machinery. The guests visited the observation platform of the coal terminal’s Phase III which is under construction at the port. They could see the scale and high readiness of the most ambitious project in the Far East. Mr Kitack Lim paid special attention to a package of measures undertaken by the company for minimization of Vostochny Port’s impact on the environment — water sprinkling system, multi-level system of air and water purification, wind shelter facilities.
“One of the aims of my visit to the Primorsky Territory is to see port facilities in the region that are significant components of the international shipping chain and to get a visualization of the infrastructure current state and development opportunities. In particular, the trip schedule included the visit to Vostochny Port, which impressed me favourably. I believe in a great future of Vostochny Port. Apart from its advantageous location, I would emphasize its perfect technical state and smooth loading/unloading procedures. I have seen large scale work focused on environmental improvements and I hope to see even greater growth and further positive changes if I come to Vostochny Port in 10 years,” said Secretary-General of IMO.
Vgrangel, Primorsky Krai based Vostochny Port JSC is Russia's largest dedicated open access coal port using covered stations for unloading and transfer of coal, conveyor equipment, rotary car dumpers, shiploaders and the second-to-none system of multi-stage magnetic coal separation. The port handles coal mined and exported by Russian coal companies. In 2016 coal throughput at the terminal reached 23.5 million tonnes, a fifth of all coal exports from Russia's seaports and about 30% of coal transshipment in the ports of the Far Eastern basin.
Since the port construction completion 390 million tonnes of coal have been exported through the facility and 6.6 million rail cars have been handled, 28,000 vessels have been received at the port berths. Over the past ten years, JSC Vostochny Port has shipped more than 200 million tonnes of coal, an all-time record among all Russian coal ports.
Vostochny Port JSC is a free access terminal, open to all coal producers. The enterprise's main objective is the increase in coal throughput and the best quality of cargo handling services: ensuring an uninterrupted supply chain and loading the commodity to the most efficient types of vessels for the formation of new supply routes.
Vostochny Port JSC LLC is implementing an ambitious investment project on construction of the coal terminal’s Phase 3 including the construction of the federal railway infrastructure. New terminal facilities will be put into operation in 2017 allowing for port capacity to reach 39 mln t in 2019. The coal will be delivered from Kuzbass and other coal fields of Russia. A sole executive body of Vostochny Port JSC is Port Management Company LLC.
Port Management Company LLC is Russia's major coal port holding that exercises the powers of a single executive body of largest dedicated coal ports based in the Baltic Sea region (Rosterminalugol JSC, Ust-Luga, Leningrad Region) and in the Far East (Vostochny Port JSC, Wrangel Bay, Primorsky Territory).Total coal throughput by the 2016 year-end results of the holding's stevedoring companies reached 41.5 million tonnes, which is more than one third of all seaborne coal exports from Russia. The commodity is exported to more than 30 countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. By 2019, according to PMC' estimates the total annual coal throughput across marine coal terminals will increase to 56.5 million tonnes.
The PMC LLC was founded in 2008. Since then coal volumes handled at Vostochny Port leaped by more than 60%, and in 2016 totaled 23.5 million tonnes. Between 2010 and 2017, the PMC Holding implemented a program of production optimization, handling equipment modernization and upgrade.
In 2016, another stevedoring company JSC Rosterminalugol became member of the PMC Holding. Following the 2016 year-end results coal volumes at Rosterminalugol terminal reached a record high of 18.1 million tonnes.
Dedicated coal ports of the holding, Vostochny Port and Rosterminalugol, are fitted with the cutting-edge equipment for closed transshipment of coal.
A specific feature of the holding’s activities is the search and introduction of the best technologies available to increase coal transshipment and improve environmental safety. The ports boast the world’s best equipment, unique import substitution technologies and self-engineered products.
