From the 24th of November 2017 JSC “Sea Port of St.Petersburg” (SPSP, a company of UCL Holding) is significantly expanding its range of additional container handling services.
According to the company’s statement, standard operations of loading containers from vessels to railways are now added by stuffing and re-stuffing of containers at the Company’s own territory and further transport of containers by railway, as well as intra-hub transportation of containerized cargo. The expansion of container operations range was the result of entering into legal force of the Order of Federal Agency of Railway Transport No. 432 dated 10.11.2017.
According to the document, the railway station New Port of the October Railways is now open for commercial operations with container cargoes as per the Paragraphs 8, 8N, 10, 10N, 11, 11N, 12, 12N of the Tariff Guidelines No.4 approved by CIS Railway Council (acceptance and delivery of cargoes in standard containers of 20, 24, 30 and up to 41 tons gross weight at the railway sidings), which is a significant development of the company’s scope of services for heavy-weight containers in terms of their acceptance/delivery to/from railway.
Currently SPSP is handling all types of ISO containers of all danger classes (excluding oil products). Container services also include additional operations of stripping, stuffing and re-stuffing of containers, consolidation of container cargoes (including less-than-container cargoes), acceptance and delivery from/to sea, river, rail and road transport. Also, the Port is handling and making up the container trains.
Previously, the containers were delivered to the berths as an addition to project, heavyweight and oversized cargoes, or in small lots.
The operational area for containerized cargoes at SPSP covers the territory of 2 hectares at the Second Cargo Area of the Greater Port of St.Petersburg and includes the following facilities:
- Berth No. 29 with max. draft of 11 meters;
- Railway frontage for handling of not less than two container trains at the same time (with the assumed length of 71 railcars per each train);
- Open storage for 1700 TEUs;
- 8.6 thousand sq. meters of warehouse;
- Stuffing/stripping/re-stuffing area;
- 96 reefer sockets;
- Facility for inspections, including phytosanitary and veterinary control;
- Container weighing facility (VGM).
Container vessels are handled at SPSP by two LIEBHERR mobile cranes with automatic positioning spreaders. The yard is serviced by seven reach-stackers, terminal tractors and other advanced machinery.
As required by today’s standards of container handling market SPSP is operating state-of-the-art software for time-slotting the inbound gate operations and for electronic exchange with the customers via dedicated web-portal.
“Opening of the railway station has significantly expanded SPSP’s scope of capabilities associated with railway delivery/shipping operations with high-capacity containers. Through this development the Port got significant competitive advantages including those related to operations with heavyweight containers of over 30 tons”, - emphasized Vladislav Zhukov, Managing Director of SPSP.
The activities for expansion of SPSP’s container handling capabilities are part of the programme of development of container services which were launched in the autumn of 2016. As a result, from the beginning of 2017 the container throughput of SPSP increased 1.5 times compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to 25 551 TEUs (191 thousand tonnes).
JSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” (a company of UCL Port – stevedoring division of the international transportation group UCL Holding) – is the largest provider of cargo handling services for all types of dry cargoes in the Greater Port of Saint-Petersburg. It operates several state-of-the-art multi-purpose terminals for handling of general and bulk cargoes, as well as specialized terminals for ro-ro and container cargoes. In 2016 the company’s cargo turnover amounted to 7.3 million tons, for 9 months of 2017 – 5.1 million tons.