CoalStar to spread its light at ports of Primorye
Rosmorrechflot has reportedly approved the intent of Eduard Khudainatov's CoalStar to invest in construction of new coal terminals in the Far East. The projects of 42 million tonnes in capacity are to be implemented in Vostochny and Vladivostok ports. Experts expect the projects to face insufficient capacity of railways in the Eastern area which is already acute.
The declarations of intent to invest into construction of a new coal terminal in the area of Vostochny Port and into construction of an oil and coal terminals in the Bezimyannaya Bay have been approved by the Federal Marine and River Transport Agency (Rosmorrechflot), FSUE Rosmorport told IAA PortNews. A new coal terminal with annual capacity of 17 million is to be built in Vostochny Port (Wrangel Bay in the Primorsky Territory). It is a project of Sea Terminal “CoalStar” LLC (owned by coal company CoalStar 75.1% of which is held by Eduard Khudainatov, Ex-General Director of Rosneft). According to Rosmorport, preparations for designing are underway. No prompt comments on the current phase of the project have been obtained by IAA PortNews from CoalStar.
The other project foresees the construction of a coal and an oil terminals in the seaport of Vladivostok (Bezimyannaya Bay in the Primorsky Territory). The project will be implemented by Sea Port Aurora LLC (fully owned by CoalStar). The port’s throughput capacity will total 35 million tonnes including 25 million tonnes of coal and 10 million tonnes of oil.
CoalStar has a license for hard coal exploration and production at the Mairykhsky and Beyskiy-Zapadniy areas of the Beyskoye coal field (Republic of Khakassia) as well as the Bogatyr area of the Gorlovsky coal basin (Novosibirsk Region). The company’s coal export destinations include Eastern and Southern European countries, China, S. Korea, Japan and Turkey.
According to information obtained by IAA PortNews, CoalStar currently exports its products via the terminals in Vostochny Port, Ust-Luga, Taman, Tuapse and Temryuk. With the growth of coal demand in the APR countries, development of port projects surged in the Far East, say CAA analysts. However, experts emphasize that creation of new coal terminals is hindered by insufficient railway capacity in the eastern area. According to International Energy Agency (IEA), overall coal demand worldwide is forecast to grow by 6% to 7.9 billion tonnes in 2021 after falling in 2019 and 2020. That increase will not take it above the record levels it reached in 2013 and 2014. IEA report says coal production is forecast to reach an all-time high in 2022, stay at that level for two years and then plateau at 8.03 bilion tonnes by 2024.
Russia’s largest coal terminals are owned by coal companies with 10 terminals accounting for about 70% of throughput, says Morstroytechnology. Among them are UMMC’s Vostochny Port and Rosterminalugol, SUEK’s Daltransugol and Murmansk Commercial seaport, EVRAZ’s Nakhodka Commercial Seaport and East Mining Company’s Coal Seaport of Shakhtersk. In 2020, throughput of Far East seaports rose by 4.6% to 223.2 million tonnes including 146.8 million tonnes of dry bulk cargo (+8.5%) and 76.4 million tonnes of liquid bulk cargo (-2.3%).
In 2019-2021 coal handling capacity of Russian ports rose by 31% from 250 to 327 million tonnes. However, Russian Railways’ loading of coal bound for ports totaled 159 million tonnes in 2019 and is expected to total 190 million tonnes in 2021 (+18%). Thus, excess of coal handling facilities in Russia is estimated at 137 million tonnes. As IAA PortNews said earlier, new coal terminal will hardly payback if there is no sufficient railway capacity. Besides, their appearance will have a negative impact on the economy of the operating coal terminals. Coal handling in the Far East ports excluding the Arctic ones totaled 107 million tonnes in 2020, says Yevgeny Rudakov, Deputy Head of Energy Sector Research Division, Institute of Natural Monopolies Research (IPEM). According to him, the growth over three quarters of 2021 totaled some 1.5%. The largest ports are Vostochny – 36.9 million tonnes in 2020 and Vanino – 28.4 million tonnes. However, throughput of Vanino port is growing this year (by 12%) while throughput of Vostochny Port is decreasing (-9%).
“Construction and commissioning of a new port is usually faster than the development of railway approaches, both remote and close ones. Implementation of ambitious railway projects normally takes a least 5 years while port construction takes 2-3 years. Meanwhile the plans of port and railway infrastructure projects should be synchronized… One of the solutions could be signing of long-term contracts based on a ship-or-pay principle with mutual obligations of the parties. However, this practice is not in line with the principle of non-discriminatory access to infrastructure and can be implemented only through a public private partnership”, summarizes Aleksandr Polikarpov, Head of the Railway Transport Research Department, Institute of Natural Monopolies Research (IPEM).
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