OREANDA-NEWS. December 24, 2007. Total value of projects for construction of sea terminals started in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region this year amounted to some $2.5 billion.

The largest project started in 2007 was the construction of Baltic Container Terminal in the port of Ust-Luga. From January 07, it is being led by National Container Company (NCC) together with German operator Eurogate, which bought 20% of the Baltic Terminal. The initial sector of the first phase is to be put into operation in late 2008, NCC Vice President Egor Govorukhin says. Severstaltrans, which bought Petrolesport in spring 2007, plans to make maximum use of the stevedore’s territory in order to increase the terminal’s capacity from 500,000 TEU to 1.8 million TEU by 2015.

Sea Port of St. Petersburg plans to build a 1.4 million TEU container terminal at the territory of its stevedoring companies. Modern container complex is being built by Oslo Marine Group.

According to Mr. Govorukhin, it’s time to develop container business as the deficit of container facilities is about 25% in the port of St. Petersburg. Stevedoring companies are to loose their clients unlike they expand their capacities. “The growth of investments into the ports is driven by the development of Russian industry and trade”, Vitali Arkhangelski, President of Oslo Marine Group says. The reconstruction of port facilities was not active enough until now as they were not required by the market. According to Nikolai Asaul, head of St. Petersburg Committee for Transit Transport Policy, the processes of the port reflect the situation in the city witnessing the increase in the number of investment projects which require a logistics infrastructure.

The other direction of the ports’ development activities is automobile transportation. The largest project here is the automobile terminal, the construction of which was started by Company Ust-Luga. According to Aleksandr Goloviznin, deputy Director General of Ust-Luga, the first phase of the project Yug-2 will be put into operation by March 2008. Automobile terminal of the Sea Port of St. Petersburg will be opened in early 2008.
According to Mr. Arkhangelski, there is a high demand for automobile transportation in Russia, though there is a deficit of corresponding facilities. The Group owns an automobile terminal Onega handling Nissan cars in the port of St. Petersburg.