Containers are not for sale

Amid speculation about possible sale of UCL Port, the Holding owner Vladimir Lisin declared the determination to invest at least RUB 8 bln into St. Petersburg-based container terminal before 2025. IAA PortNews obtained a confirmation from the Holding on the absence of plans to sell UCL Port despite the consideration of a possibility to attract a strategic investor.

New plans

UCL Holding shareholder Vladimir Lisin and St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko have visited the Holding enterprises located in the city.  According to the Holding press center, the working meeting started at the Container Terminal of Saint-Petersburg (CTSP, part of UCL Port, stevedoring division of UCL Holding). 

Vladimir Lisin introduced the key strategic project of UCL Port to Georgy Poltavchenko and told him about the plans on its further development. In particular, the second phase of CTSP is expected to be built by 2025. With that, the Terminal’s designed capacity will increase from 400,000 to 1.44 mln TEUs. Investment in the Terminal development is to make at least RUB 8 bln. 

When fully operational, CTSP will generate over a thousand of jobs while tax return to the budgets of all levels will make some RUB 2.2 bln per year.

CTSP was set up as a successor to Forth Stevedoring Company of Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg. The first phase of the container terminal was launched in late 2010.

As it was announced earlier, further CTSP development through the implementation of the project on building the second phase of the container terminal implies the waterfront extension and storage space expansion as well as the purchase of new production equipment for container cargo handling. According to the plans announced earlier, the launch of the second phase in 2014 is expected to boost the Terminal’s annual capacity to 1.2 mln TEUs. So, the plans have been postponed but seem to be more realistic now.

Besides, the fact of Lisin’s personal announcement of the development plans could be treated as a signal for the market about absence of plans to sell the asset. “There is no plan to sell UCL Port, there are no negotiations in this respect. Other variants are under consideration including the attraction of a strategic investor,” the Holding commented for IAA PortNews (apart form the Container Terminal of Saint-Petersburg, UCL Port incorporates Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg, Universal Reloading Complex in Ust-Luga, Tuapse Commercial Sea Port and Taganrog Commercial Sea Port).

It should be noted that with the expansion the Terminal will have to face quite a tough competition with the projects of other companies, like First Container Terminal (National Container Company), Petrolesport and Moby Dik (Global Ports) at Big Port St. Petersburg, or Ust-Luga Container Terminal. New outer port Bronka is being built in St. Petersburg suburb. It will also handle containers and Ro-Ro cargo. Each company has it own capacity development programme.

According to the data available to IAA PortNews, CTSP’s controls some 15.5% of the market of container stevedoring services in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, being the third in terms of container turnover after National Container Company (NCC) and Global Ports, that we covered earlier >>>> 

Meanwhile, Global Ports has recently said it was in negotiations about possible acquisition of NCC, though it warned that the result is unclear. 

No wonder, that the business is interested in container handling within the Baltic basin – it is the main sea “gate” for cargoes delivered to Russia today and, without doubt, it will retain this status in the future. Saint-Petersburg itself, as the second largest metropolis of Russia, is a significant consumer of containerized cargoes. 

Vitaly Chernov