Part of Kalija parks terminal in Ventspils could be sold
The current owners of the Kalija parks terminal in Ventspils intend to sell part of the terminal, as businessman Olegs Stepanovs confirms in an interview to the newspaper Dienas Bizness.Stepanovs reminds that the total investments into the establishment of Kalija parks terminal exceeded EUR 50 million.
"At one point, over five million tons of cargo per year were transshipped at the terminal. However, an erroneous railroad tariff policy has resulted in artificial competition with the Klaipeda Port, which started off by handling small amounts of potassium salt, but it constantly increased its capacity and made infrastructure improvements every year," the entrepreneurs comments.
Now the owners of Kalija parks are interested in selling part of the terminal, which would to a large extent solve their problems with attracting cargo freights if a freight owner becomes a co-owner of the terminal, writes LETA.
"The best option would be to sell the terminal to Belarus and Russian companies, because these are the two countries where the freights come from. Unfortunately, there is no large, centralized potassium salt producer in Russia and Belarus, therefore this would be hard to do at the moment," said Stepanovs, adding nevertheless that he believes that such agreement could be reached eventually. After all, the company provides several hundred people with jobs, he said.Talks on attracting investors to Kalija parks have already been held in the past, however, no such talks can continue presently due to the LSF Holdings lawsuit against Kalija parks.
"Because of the lawsuit, investors are not ready to take on risks and acquire the terminal. We have been litigating for several years already to keep the ownership of the terminal. There are certain persons who do not see any difference between what is their property and what belongs to someone else," Stepanovs points out.
At the beginning of January, handling of potassium salt at the Ventspils Port came to a halt, as Kalija parks Financial Director Dainis Treimanis confirmed to LETA, underlining though that it does not mean at all that the company's operations would not be resumed in the future.
Both former customers of the terminal – potassium salt suppliers from Russia and from Belarus – have stopped potassium salt shipments via Ventspils.