OREANDA-NEWS. February 12, 2009. In January 2009, Russian seaports handled 36.7 million tonnes of cargo (+7.5%, or +2.56 million tonnes, year-on-year). In the reported period, Russian seaports handled 13.4 million tonnes of dry cargo (-5.1%) and 24 million tonnes of liquid bulk cargo (+15.6%).

The decrease of dry cargo traffic should be attributed mainly to lower volumes of import cargo:  import of containerized cargo fell by 42.1% to 0.8 million tonnes, general cargo - by 38.9% to 0.47 million tonnes, sugar – by 80% to 35,000 tonnes.

Operators of sea terminals in the North-West Basin handled 17 million tonnes (+1.5%) including 5.4 million tonnes of dry cargo (-11.7%) and 11.6 million tonnes of liquid bulk cargo (+9.1%).

Throughput of the Southern ports grew by 23.6% to 14 million tonnes including 3.8 million tonnes of dry cargo (+23.3%) and 10.2 million tonnes of liquid bulk cargo (+23.7%).

The port of the far East handled 5.7 million tonnes of cargo (-5.9%), including 3.5 million tonnes of dry cargo (-16.7%) and 2.3 million tonnes of liquid bulk cargo (+17.5%).