Customs eased control procedure for 90% of tankers at Primorsk, Vysotsk and Ust-Luga
Today, roughly about 90 percent of all oil tankers making calls at the regional Russian ports are not inspected by officers of the Northwest Energy Customs office on board the ships, said the local customs head who participated in the Baltic Oil and Gas Trading & Transportation Conference in St. Petersburg.
Gennady Vinogradov, Chief of Customs Clearance and Control Enforcement No 2 of the Central Energy Customs of FCS of Russia, said that the customs control procedure in Vysotsk has been simplified for 100% of tankers. In the port of Primorsk, customs officers get on board only 5% of arriving tankers. In Ust-Luga the number is a little less - because the tankers receiving fuel at offshore bunkering locations are subject to inspection by officers on board.
However, the customs official noted that not all ship agents and masters are still ready for some reasons to submit to customs authority advance notice of arrival.
Currently, processing of documents takes about two hours, while submission of electronic cargo declaration via the Federal Customs Service web-based application would take a lot less time.
The new customs control procedure, the inspection of ship and cargo after off-loading, has been effective in the Russian ports since early 2011, after the Russian Ministry of Transportation approved the Model Scheme of border crossing checkpoints through the state border of the Russian Federation of persons, vehicles, cargoes, goods and animals in the sea and river (lake) checkpoints.