During the 2012 summer navigation season OAO LUKOIL will change the scheme of dark oil product exports delivered by river through the Volga-Baltic canal and to nearly double the exports volume to 1 million tons, a source in the oil company told PortNews.
Currently, LUKOIL-Chernomoriye, an oil giant’s subsidiary has been implementing a project for deployment at the 5A outer anchorage off Kronstadt (Big Port St. Petersburg) of a large-capacity FSO vessel for transshipment of exported oil products delivered by 5,000dwt river tankers through inland waterways of Russia. The products are delivered from the following refineries: NORSI, Perm and Ukhta. The FSO is expected to be deployed the outer anchorage of Big Port St. Petersburg by May 20, 2012.
With the facility installation RPK Vysotsk "LUKOIL-II» will no longer handle river-sea going tankers delivering oil products on Russia's inland waterways. However, until May 20, the Vysotsk oil terminal will continue handling several river-sea tankers.
PortNews has reported that in 2011 the volume of fuel oil delivered to RPK Vysotsk by the mixed rive-sea sailing vessels totaled 532,600 tons of fuel oil (111 ship calls).
CJSC LUKOIL-Chernomoriye was created in 1994 in Novorossiysk. The company is a Qualified Operator for handling and transshipment of cargoes of LUKOIL Group's companies in sea and river ports. The company provides a broad range of services for freight forwarding, customs clearance of imports / exports and ship’s agency service.
In 2011, Russian oil product exports through the terminal RPK Vysotsk "LUKOIL II» (Leningrad region) amounted to 9,687, 600 tons (209 tankers), a nearly 20-percent drop year-over-year.