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St Petersburg harbour master cries out for container hubs
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15 Dec 2008
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THE harbour master of the Port of St. Petersburg Pyotr Parinov, is urging the government to build container hubs in the nation, saying such facilities are "desperately lacking."
Mr Parinov's call was made at the recent fifth International Conference "Freight-2008: Container and Ro-Ro Transportation in Russia and the Neighbouring States" held in St. Petersburg. The event was organised by SeaNews Information & Consulting and was supported by the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economic Development.
The harbour master noted that Russia's container potential currently amounts to 20 million TEU annually in his presentation on "Hub Ports Development in Russia", delivered at the opening of the conference.
"In terms of the global container market Russia is on the periphery due to the ridiculously small amount of transportation. The general economic rule about demand stimulating supply applies to the transport sector in a reverse mode: in transport, it is supply that stimulates demand.
"But we have no decent supply, we have not got a single large container terminal complying with the requirements of global shippers," said Mr Parinov.
The Russian Ministry of Transport believes the first of such container hubs should be built in the Kaliningrad region near the existing port of Baltiysk, but this is expected to be a project over the long-term. The idea is to use the traditional hub-and-spoke scheme, whereby boxes will be delivered to the new hub from APR countries on board ocean-going containerships and carried to destinations in Poland, Germany, Denmark, Finland and other European countries by feeder vessels.
However, the plan is said to not be that easy to put into practice given that the Kaliningrad region ports are the westernmost in Russia, and in order to reach them, ships must pass through a few hubs in Europe, both in the Baltic and the North Sea.
Another possible snag is the current decrease in traffic between Asia and Europe amid the current global economic slowdown. It is expected that the lack of cargo for the route will manifest itself in February-March.
Other highlights of the conference was the announcement by Alexander Goloviznin, deputy director general of Ust-Luga Company, that this December the multi-purpose terminal Yug-2 at Ust-Luga is to start operations as the border crossing checkpoint is anticipated to be officially opened soon. Ust-Luga will be able to serve large-tonnage ships, the maximum size and draft that can pass the Baltic Straits. As Ust-Luga has been chosen as the terminal for Baltic Pipeline System 2, the dredging will be done to 17.5 metres.
Another key project for Ust-Luga is the container terminal developed by National Container Company. According to NCC vice president Yegor Govorukhin, Stage 1 of the Ust-Luga container terminal is to be inaugurated in August 2009. In April next year the terminal will receive its first cranes. The project capacity of Stage 1 is 350,000-500,000 TEU annually. "The financial crisis has not affected any of our projects," added Mr Govorukhin in his presentation.
Sergey Kozlov, CEO of Eurasia Transport Group, told the audience about Eurasia's terminal network project worth US$7.4 billion. The project envisages developing terminals in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and a number of other Russian cities.
According to Andrey Bogdanov, director of Commerce of First Container Terminal (FCT) in the St. Petersburg port, the terminal is expected to handle 1.1 million TEU, the level of 2008. The FCT modernisation programme includes the acquisition of new terminal equipment and requires the dismantling all the buildings that are not involved in container handling.
The brand-new off-dock Logistika-Terminal in Shushary is to start operations in early 2009. The terminal storage capacity is up to 10,000 TEU of laden containers and 4,500 TEU of empties. So far, the terminal has received two Konecranes units, and the rail tracks are said to be under construction.
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