OREANDA-NEWS. Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port Group (NCSP Group or the Group) (LSE: NCSP, Moscow Exchange: NMTP) announces that its consolidated cargo turnover in January-June 2014 amounted to 68.7 million tonnes.

Liquid cargo comprised 54.9 mln tonnes (down 10.0% year-on-year); bulk cargo totaled 4.9 mln tonnes (up 62.7% year-on-year); general cargo was 6.0 mln tonnes (8.0% up year-on-year), and containers amounted to 2.9 mln tonnes or 353 thousand TEU (up 14.7% and 9.9% year-on-year respectively).

PJSC NCSP CEO Yuri Matvienko commented on NCSP Group's operating results for H1 2014:

"Our operating results for the first half of the year demonstrate that the Group is successfully managing its cargo portfolio to compensate for stagnation or loss in one group of cargoes with growth in other segments. Volumes of oil products, containers, metals, timber, and grain have been growing since the beginning of the year. Sustainable trend of reducing the gap in crude oil volumes must also be stressed. Altogether these factors enable us to deliver on earlier promises and maintain stable cargo traffic by yearend".

Liquid Cargo

In the first six months of 2014 the Group loaded 54 933 thousand tonnes of liquid cargo, including 39 762 thousand tonnes of crude oil; 14 657 thousand tonnes of oil products; 326 thousand tonnes and 188 thousand tonnes of liquid fertilizers and seed oils respectively. The lag in crude oil volumes reduced by 1.2 percent points to 16.8% year-on-year versus that of 18.0% for the period of January-May 2014. Oil products volumes exceeded these of H1 2013 by 1 856 thousand tonnes or by 14.5% year-on-year.

Bulk Cargo

Volumes of bulk cargo totaled 4 992 thousand tonnes in January-June 2014 and exceeded these of same period last year by 1 897 thousand tonnes or by 62.7% year-on-year. Of these grain accounted for 2 540 thousand tonnes; iron ore comprised 892 thousand tonnes; sugar totaled 670 thousand tonnes; coal amounted to 463 thousand tonnes, and fertilizers were 336 thousand tonnes.

Grain remains the locomotive of growth exceeding the volumes of H1 2013 more than five times. A drop in grain volumes in May and June was conditioned by the delayed start of the 2014 harvest and relatively high prices on Russian grain, which reduces its appeal in the global market.

Sugar volumes are up by 209 thousand tonnes or 45.2% year-on-year, and growth rates sped up by 16.5 percent points versus that of the five month of 2014.

The lag in fertilizers and coal volumes in H1 2013 comprised 23.4% and 4.4% year-on-year improving by 9.6 and 5.3 percent points respectively from that of the five months.

Iron ore volumes were up 77% in June versus May 2014 on the back of improved markets, reducing year-on-year gap by 11.9 percent points down to 11.4%.

General Cargo

General cargo volumes totaled 6 021 thousand tonnes in H1 2014 exceeding these of H1 2013 by 444 thousand tonnes or 8.0%. Of these ferrous metals comprised 4 931 thousand tonnes, non-ferrous metals accounted for 513 thousand tonnes, timber totaled 317 thousand tonnes, perishable and other cargo amounted to 184 and 76 thousand tonnes respectively.

Volumes of ferrous metal and pig iron increased by 423 thousand tonnes or 9.4% year-on-year. Timber handling was up by 72 thousand tonnes or 29.4% year-on-year as growth rate accelerated by 12.3 percent points from that of the five months of 2014. The lag in non-ferrous metal reduced by 1.6 percent points to 5.1% year-on-year.

Containers

NCSP Group's container traffic is up 9.9% year-on-year reaching 353 thousand TEU in H1 2014. Growth rate in TEU improved by 1.3 percent point from that of the five months. Container turnover in tonnes grew ahead of TEU by 14.7% year-on-year and totaled 2 868 thousand tonnes, which is almost twice as fast as the industry's total growth of 7.8% year-on-year, according to ASOP.