Dalreftrans (a company of FESCO Transportation Group) and Russian Export Center (REC) integrate exports of marine biological resources into a single service, Fish Shuttle, which is to help reduce shippers' expenses and increase traffic volumes, Andrey Grechkin, General Director of Dalreftrans LLC, said at TransRussia forum in Moscow.
According to him, the company doubled its fleet of containers in 2022 having acquired 2.5 thousand new reefer containers. At the moment, it numbers 5 thousand units. According to the company's estimates, there are about 11 thousand reefer containers in the Russian Federation. “Today, … we are ready for an increase, but there is no such need so far. If necessary, we can get the required number in one and a half or two months,” he specified.
Andrey Grechkin says that major efforts are now focused on building up the turnover, and the Fish Shuttle service should help this. “The service combines the existing delivery models from the Far East, St. Petersburg and Murmansk into a single system that includes new container services launched in 2023, - the route from Kaliningrad to St. Petersburg and the Deep Sea line from St. Petersburg to the key ports of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, which will be opened on April 25. By the way, the first batch of 57 containers includes reefer containers with the products of Baltic fishermen,” he says, adding that up to 6 ships are planned on the Deep Sea line by the end of 2023.
Among the main advantages of the service the speaker named its high speed due to the absence of intermediate ship calls (35 days from St. Petersburg to China).
Dalreftrans forecasts an increase of annual export results to 12 thousand TEU. “Apart from the abovementioned deliveries, there will also be two voyages by Sevmorput container carrier along the Northern Sea Route - in June and late September. The ship can carry 204 reefer containers and we plan a full load of both voyages in both directions. From the west it will be export of crab and fresh-frozen fish, perhaps, and from the east - domestic supplies. Export deliveries will also continue along the intermodal route from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Bryansk, Murmansk to Vladivostok, and then to China. Annually, this is about 9 thousand TEU of meat and fish products, mainly meat. Shipments from coastal destinations in the Far East make additional 6 thousand TEU, mainly exports from Kamchatka and Sakhalin. In general, by the end of 2023, we expect an increase in the volume of transportation of all types of cargo in reefer containers by 30% to 58.5 thousand TEU,” says Andrey Grechkin.
According to the head of Dalreftrans, bulk of exports go to China. As for the prospects, Africa is an interesting direction in the near future, but it requires in-depth research and joint efforts of all the stakeholders.