Ports dreaming of becoming hubs

Becoming a hub port is a cherished dream of many ports and related businesses. The ports of Hamburg and Klaipeda announced their hub-focused plans at the TransRussia 2014 exhibition. Moreover, hubs are supposed to appear even in Sevastopol and in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Baltic horizons

Hub port is a logistic center accepting cargo for further distribution either on the shore or between other minor ports. The status of a hub port means enormous cargo flows and adequate logistic services. No wonder that lots of ports strive to become hubs.

As Arvidas Vaitkue, Director General of Klaipeda Seaport (Lithuania), said at TransRussia 2014, the port plans dredging up to 17 m by 2018 and becoming a hub. According to him, the port plans becoming a container hub.

In 2014 container terminal of MSC and Maersk is to start operation. It will handle container carriers with the capacity of up to 6,500 TEUs which will facilitate the creation of a container hub in Klaipeda.

The same development is the target of the Port of Hamburg. According to Marina Rimpo, Project Manager of "Amber Coast Logistics" with Port of Hamburg Marketing, this will become possible with the handling of container carriers of up to 18,000 TEUs in capacity. 

It should be noted, that Russia also had a plan of creating a hub port in the Baltic region. It was supposed to appear in Kaliningrad Region but the project was rejected because of its economic inefficiency. 

More reasonable idea is to develop the existing container terminal in Russia’s Baltic region: those in Saint-Petersburg and Ust-Luga, as well as the development of outer port Bronka focused on handling containers and ro-ro cargo through ferry links with Kaliningrad or through a container line between Kaliningrad and Saint-Petersburg. By the way, Bronka project represented at the exhibition arouse much interest and ferry operator Stena Line said regular calls at Bronka are quite possible.

Arctic-Crimean exotics

Meanwhile, new projects appear on construction of hub ports in some “exotic” territories of Russia. 

For example, the authorities of the Kamchatka Territory propose reconstruction of port Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in order turnover convert it into a hub which could handle cargo flows running along the Northern Sea Route. According to Nikolai Pegin, Advisor to Kamchatka Territory Governor, this will require a comprehensive reconstruction and seismic retrofit of 2,000-meter long berths, expansion of the port territory to 53 hectares and construction of anew passenger terminal. With the project implementation, the port’s throughput can be increased to 8 mln t per year and even more. Among the port advantages mentioned by Nikolai Pegin, is the 26-meter deep bay and the opportunity to provide bunkering and other supplies.

However, the success depends on the shipping along the Northern Sea Route. To develop it, Pegin proposed the establishment of an Arctic container line with three Arc7 container carriers costing $120 mln each.

The idea of such a line was earlier expressed by an independent expert in the sphere of cargo shipping. As he said at the III International Forum “Arctic: present and future” in Saint-Petersburg, this line could start with chartered fleet and operate its own container park based in Pusan (S. Korea), providing freight and agent’s services as well as containers. Then the line which could be called Polar Sea Line can become a ship owner and order new vessels.

Stena Line, in its turn, proposes the creation of a hub port in Sevastopol (Crimea). Actually, it means the development of a logistic center there. 

“We see it logical to develop the transit potential of Sevastopol through establishment of ferry links in the Black Sea and creation of a hub there for consolidation and distribution of cargo going to Russia and transit cargo. For that purpose, new business should be set up in Sevastopol for storing, terminal operations, keeping of rolling stock, servicing of passengers, which requires a territory of 20 hectares. It is difficult to calculate the investments needed for this project but it is known that the development of a ferry terminal in Klaipeda (Lithuania) cost over EUR 20 mln in 2013,” says Aivars Taurins, Regional Director for the Baltics, Russia and the CIS countries at Stena Line. 

Of course, ferry transportation is very important for Crimea especially before the Kerch-Kavkaz bridge is built. But it should be taken into consideration that Crimea is not acknowledged as the territory of Russia by the majority of states and many companies will not work with it, the more so in case of toughened sanctions against the Russian Federation. However, the proposal of a European company as regards the creation of hub port in Sevastopol cannot but inspires hope for resolving of the current situation.

It is worthy of note that the idea of a hub port in Crimea was earlier nourished by the Ukrainian authorities of the peninsula, though it was replaced with the idea to build deepwater grain terminals for Chinese investors.

Vitaly Chernov