According to Rosmorrechflot's estimates freight traffic at the ports located in the North-West of Russia may increase by 60 million tonnes a year by 2020, the federal agency official said on Monday.
Nadezhda Zhikhareva, Deputy head of Rosmorrechflot (Federal Marine and River Transport Agency) who was speaking at a meeting of the Coordination Council for Development of the Transport System in St. Petersburg and Leningrad region told that about 40 million tonnes is expected to be generated in the segment of dry bulk cargo. Additional volumes of freight will be received thanks to shifting of imports flows to Russian ports from from the neighboring countries sea ports (more than 25 million tonnes per year).
Among the promising projects Ms Zhikhareva named the project of EuroChem Group's terminal for mineral fertilizers in Ust-Luga port. The facility will have a capacity of 7 million tonnes per year with investments valued at approx. RUB 12 billion. Another project is a universal handling complex at the Port of Primorsk with a capacity of 36 million tonnes annually The terminal will handle mineral fertilizers, scrap metal, grain. Investment in the project will reach some RUB 70 billion, including RUB 7 billion in federally owned facilities. Rosmorrechlfot has agreed on a Memorandum of Intent to implement the project. Yet another project is the construction of LNG terminals in the ports of Ust-Luga (the project is currently at the stage of predevelopment analysis) and Vysotsk (investment at amount of 14.5 billion rubles, at the stage of project development Phase 3. Construction of onshore facilities is underway). The project of LNG complex in the Kaliningrad region with a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes per year (total investments – RUB 28 bn). Also Russia will continue the expansion of existing terminals, among them container port Bronka, Big Port St. Petersburg.