Sushary. Reloading
Eurosib company has presented its terminal-and-logistics center "Eurosib-Shushary". Investments into the project will total some $45-50 million while the complex itself is to start operation by early 2008.
Covered complex
The complex’s annual throughput will make 50,000 TEU and 560,000 tonnes of general cargo, Rashid Posdnyakov, the leader of project TLC Shushary of Eurosib-Test CJSC said at the presentation. According to him, it this multi-purpose terminal will be capable of handling almost all types of cargo excluding dry bulk and liquid bulk cargo.
The company thinks the terminal will be focused at servicing not only transit cargo but import-and-export flows going via the port of St. Petersburg as well. The total area of 16 hectares will include an A-class covered and heated warehouse (covering over 20,000 square meters), non-headed warehouse (10,000 square meters) and a container terminal capable of storing 2,000 TEU. The center has three railways with total length of 2.5 kilometers. If necessary, the company’s own rolling stock may be used for the terminal operation. Experts think establishment of a container train would be a reasonable solution for decrease of load at the city’s roads. Actually, the absence of necessary transport infrastructure is one of the deterrents limiting business development. According to Andrei Karpov, BOD Chairman of Dorn LLC, in Europe railways account for 70% of container transportation. As for St. Petersburg, railways take only 5% of containers from the port. Therefore, congestions and traffic jams are frequent at the approaches to the terminals. “The majority of cargo is taken out from the port by motor transport,” Mikhail Sverdlov, Director on external relations of Eurosib CJSC notes. “However we count that container trains will be able to defuse the tension in the district.”
Eurosib operates construction of logistics terminals within the framework of a project on establishment of a terminal network in Russia’s largest cargo centers. In St. Petersburg, the company has already opened Predportovy terminal. It was put into operation in early 2006. The terminal is mainly used for handling and storage of cargoes delivered by railway from the Sea Port of St. Petersburg.
Besides, the plants of Japanese Toyota and American General Motors (GM) are under construction within the same industrial area. Toyota plans to start production in December 2007, GM – in late 2008. According to experts, implementation of the above projects will guarantee certain scope of work for Eurosib, which will enable the company recover its investments into the projects. Dmitri Nikitin, Director General of Eurosib CJSC, says “automobile assembly plants of St. Petersburg located close to this industrial area may become potential customers of "Eurosib-Shushary" complex.
Andrei Karpov says the interest of transport company in Shushary is quite reasonable. According to him, Shushary is a very convenient logistics zone, in particular, for arrangement of cargo transit to Moscow.
Three-phase logistics
Implementation of the first phase of a program aimed at establishment of the federal network of transport-and-logistics complexes is scheduled for the end of 2008. It is supposed that by the second phase (2010-2011), Eurosib’s network will comprise 6 terminals including two terminals in St. Petersburg and one terminal in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg and Zabaikalsk. Total volume of investments into this phase will make $200 million. By 2012, Eurosib’s terminal network will include over 10 centers in Russia and abroad. According to Mikhail Sverdlov, Eurosib will later determine the states to cooperate with the company. Currently Eurosib carries out a survey to estimate the demand of other countries for such complexes. Among other states, Sverdlov named several CIS countries.
Information:
Eurosib Group is one of the leading logistics & transportation businesses in Russia. The company manages a fleet of 10,500 wagons 6,600 TEU of containers. The company accounts for 20% of the North-West market of timber export. In 2006, turnover of Eurosib’s transport companies totaled $469.4 million. Today the company is the leader at the market of container transportation of motor cars from China. The company accounts for over 57% of Finnish paper exported by railway to Russia and CIS countries.