OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2010. The Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port Group (LSE: NCSP, RTS and MICEX: NMTP) reports its consolidated operational results for the full year 2009. In the reporting year NCSP Group’s cargo turnover amounted to 86,519.4 thousand tons, which is by 6.0% or by 4,888.1 thousand tons exceeds the cargo turnover for 2008.

During this period the total amount of cargoes that demonstrated a positive growth rate recorded an aggregate growth of 9,860.0 thousand tons. Most of this increase was contributed by grain volumes growing by 2,758.0 thousand tons (43.7%), and by iron ore and ore concentrate tonnage growing by 2,464.8 thousand tons. On the other hand, the aggregate decrease of the cargoes that demonstrated negative dynamics stood at 4,972.0 thousand tons, with 82.5% of this decrease conditioned by the slump in container volumes and a virtual halt of cement shipments as a result of the economic downturn.

The volumes of Bulk cargo in the reporting year increased by 40.0% versus full year 2008. Liquid cargo volumes in 2009 showed an aggregate growth of 6.6% versus previous year. Handling of General cargo in the reporting year exceeded that of 2008 by 1.7%.

Commenting on the full year 2009 operating results NCSP Chairman Alexander Ponomarenko said: "Throughout 2009 we had to work in a very complicated and constantly changing environment. At the start of the year we posed ourselves a task to sustain positive growth rates in cargo traffic by optimizing capacity utilization, including new terminals launched over the last two years. And today we can say that our targets were met".

Grain volumes led the growth in 2009 with a 2,758.0 thousand tons (43.7%) increase. In 2009 grain handling reached a record breaking level of 9,074.7 thousand tons, of which 5,080.0 thousand tons were loaded by OJSC Novorossiysk Grain Terminal.

Iron ore and ore concentrate tonnage in 2009 totaled 2,662.6 thousand tons versus 197.8 thousand tons in 2008 thanks to additional volumes attracted to compensate for the decrease in some other bulk cargoes due to objective reasons.

The volumes of mineral fertilizers increased by 401.2 thousand tons (31.4%) in 2009 and most of this increase was achieved in the last quarter of the year. Transshipment of ferrous and non-ferrous metals has also grown by 3.2% and 4.3% respectively.

Oil products volumes in the reporting year grew by 1,974.4 thousand tons (17.6%) of which 948.3 thousand tons account for diesel fuel loaded via OJSC IPP’s new capacity. Volume of crude oil has also increased by 4.5%.

Container traffic suffered the most in 2009 and shrunk by 146.5 thousand TEU (38.4%) versus 2008, which is generally in line with the global trends in this industry. Nearly complete cessation of cements shipments, both export and import, due to the worsening situation in the construction industry, resulted in additional cargo traffic decrease of 974.6 thousand tons.