New ro-ro service starts in Saint Petersburg port today. The line operated by Transfennica LLC will first link Saint Petersburg with the port of Lubeck in Germany. Then the Karolin Russ ferry will start running between the ports of Hamina (Finland), Saint Petersburg (Russia), Antwerp (Belgium) and Tilbury (Great Britain)

RF Ministry of Transport calculates expenses for modernization of inland waterways (IWW) and navigation hydraulic structures (HS). According to initial estimations the amount is to exceed 166 billion rubles of one-time investments and over 10 billion rubles of annual investments

Federal Agency of Sea and River Transport under Transport Ministry of RF (Rosmorrechflot) responded to the appeal of Tanker Union NP (Non-Profit Partnership) as regards the possibility to increase draw-period for the bridge over the Volga river in Nizhnij Novgorod

Export of grain via Russia’s southern ports over the first seven months of the current year fell by 18.6% amounting to 3.5 million tons. Nevertheless, branch experts think it is too early to consider this decrease to be a stable process

Vladivostok sea fishing port plans to increase container cargo transshipment in 2006 by 50% against 2005. It should reach 42 096 TEU. Planned dynamics is confirmed by operational indicators of the first half of the year: container turnover growth is 60%. The company managed to achieve these results owing to modernization of the terminal production facilities and management system

This preliminary ice forecast is based on the research of the rules of large-scale atmospheric process in the Northern hemisphere held from the beginning of the current year. It also considers space-and-geophysical phenomena as well as ice-and-thermal state of adjacent northern seas featured with certain prognostics. This integrated approach enables to determine general baseline features of forecasted ice conditions

Federal Agency of Water Recourses under RF Ministry of Natural Recourses (Rosvodresursy) is to decrease from August 21 water spillover at Nizhegorodskaya HPS from 1170 to 1000 m3/sec.

The construction of the ferry complex has been finalized at the sea trade port of Ust-Luga. The project implementation will enable to stop delivery of military cargo by transit via Baltic countries, since it provides direct link of Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions.

LUKOIL OC has finalized the construction of a Distribution-and-Transshipment Complex (DTC) at Vysotskij island in Leningrad Region.

Konstantin Goncharov, Director General of Ust-Luga branch of Rosmorport FSUE, told PortNews IAA correspondent about perspectives of new ferry service.