OREANDA-NEWS. March 6, 2009. Russian sea port administrations reported a significant decrease in freight turnover while NCC’s share of the Russian container handling market increased by half to reach a staggering 40%.

Russian sea port administrations posted a consolidated report last month showing NCC’s share of the domestic marine container handling market at as high as 40% in January as compared to 28.8% in December 2008.

Egor Govorukhin, NCC Vice President for Sales & Marketing, said that “the decrease in throughput across the local ports and the industry as a whole is a direct result of the unfolding economic downturn which is affecting the Russian importers in every possible way. In the meantime the NCC’s share of container throughput in the Russian ports continued to go up due to the increasing demand for higher quality and customer oriented services provided by FCT and NUTEP. The up side of the declining market for our clients is that these days the shipping lines have an opportunity to pick a terminal that truly suits their operational requirements which is a drastic change as compared to the previous periods marked by a severe congestion and tremendous lack of terminal capacity across the field. The enduring market strength of our company is explained by the fact that NCC has been the frontrunner in this business for more than a decade and gained the expertise and experience that enabled us to secure long term relationships with the leading shipping lines. NCC operates modern equipment which is upgraded on a regular basis to match the international standards. We invest in IT technology and training of the personnel as well as in continual studies and accommodation of the increasing demands coming from our wide and diversified client base which in the end of the day pays off in terms of customer retention and ability to attract additional cargo.” – Govorukhin concluded.

NCC also reported that the aggregated throughput of NCC terminals in January-February 2009 amounted to 178 665 TEU.

The throughput of First Container Terminal (FCT, St.Petersburg) in the reported period equaled 124,608 TEU (-24.7% comp. to 2008). In February, FCT handled 61,301 TEU (-27.3% comp. to Feb 2008).

The throughput of NUTEP (Novorossiysk) in January-February 2009 was 20,909 TEU (-12% comp. to 2008). In February, the terminal’s throughput came down to 9,503 TEU (-22% comp. to Feb 2008).

The throughput of Ukrtranscontainer (UTC, Illichivsk, Ukraine) in January-February 2009 was 33,148 TEU (-60% comp. to 2008). In February, UTC handled 16,275 TEU (-64% comp. to Feb 2008).