Maritime
Russian ports are getting ready
Interview with Irina Lobkova, Press Secretary of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Rosmorport”
‚ Last year’s winter was exceptionally hard, above
Photo: Rosmorport
containers in a blink of an eye, and to motivate them to do so, the company reduced its
free storage time for import containers from
10 to five days. Maersk Line implemented a
Winter Surcharge (WSC) for all shipments to
and from Port of St. Petersburg (USD 100 per
TEU and USD 200 per FEU).
But the terminal operators didn’t stay
helpless and started to levy congestion surcharges on carriers. First Container Terminal
in St. Petersburg increased storage charges
for all import containers and carried out a
congestion surcharge for import and export
containers of USD 50 per box. Last but not
least, the trucking companies were affected
by the winter. As severe shortage of trucks
occurred, transportation prices became unstable and were agreed on a day-to-day basis.
Unfortunately, even if the higher price for the
service was accepted, the client didn’t have
any guarantee that transport would arrive.
This is the chief and also a typical problem
for container flows to and from all Russian
Baltic ports, as overland routes are undeveloped and no matter if it snows half a meter
or more, traffic is always jammed, straining
companies with additional expenses.
To improve the situation – or to not worsen it – the Russian authorities dispatched
10 icebreaking vessels to work regularly
The diesel-electric icebreaker Kapitan Nikolaev from
Murmansk branch was transferred this summer to Saint
Petersburg for permanent basing and will be used for
icebreaker assistances during upcoming winter navigation, and the arrival of a second Murmansk icebreaker,
Kapitan Dranitsyn, is possible. Kapitan Dranitsyn will
be on standby, as it will continue its operation on the
White Sea, but when the situation aggravates, it will be
sent to the Gulf of Finland immediately.
Altogether, as a result of our preparations, 15 FSUE Rosmorport diesel icebreakers will be situated in the Gulf of Finland during the upcoming winter. Moreover, deployment of atomic icebreakers to the Baltic Sea is under consideration at the moment. According to experts of the Icebreaking Operations Headquarters, this kind of icebreaker disposition scheme will be the most
appropriate form of winter navigation in the Gulf of Finland during the upcoming season.
Photo: Rosmorport
Photo: Rosmorport
all for the ports of St. Petersburg and Primorsk
as well as for shipping and trucking companies
running businesses in Russian terminals. In what
way is Rosmorport preparing for this upcoming
winter?
‚ In the presentation entitled “Ice-breaking services during winter navigation in Rus-
sian ports of the Gulf of Finland”, Andrey Lavrischev, Rosmorport’s general director,
showed the expansion plan of Russia’s icebreaker fleet. Can you say something more
about this concept?
By the end of this year the construction of four new generation diesel-electric open sea
icebreakers from federal budget resources will be undertaken – one icebreaker with 25 MW
capacity (Project 22600) and three icebreakers with 17.4 MW capacity (Project 21900M). The
last three are an upgraded project of Moscow and Saint Petersburg class icebreakers, which
were constructed by Baltiysky Zavod JSC during 2005-2009 by the order of Rosmorport. This
year the enterprise finances the Project 21900M elaboration at its own expense and the
project design operations cost amounts to about RUB 70 mln (EUR 1.68 mln). Federal budget
expenses on four icebreakers are provided in the amount of over RUB 25 bln (EUR 600 mln).
A contractor for the construction of the vessels will be selected by tendering procedures,
in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. At the moment, tender documentation is being prepared and approved. These projects provide technical solutions to
comply present and future requirements of the International Maritime Organization as well
as national standards and requirements of the Russian Federation.
in this area (five for St. Petersburg, two for
Port of Vyborg, two for Port of Ust-Luga and
one for Port of Primorsk), but they were no
match for the 35-75 cm thick ice in bays of
Vyborg and St. Petersburg as well as for 2060 cm ice within Gulf of Finland’s archipelago. What’s more, the thickness of the ice isn’t
the main problem, the ice floats pushed by
the wind towards St. Petersburg are, which
in addition freeze together and form large ice
blocks. In March 2011 Port of St. Petersburg
Authority reported that about 109 vessels
in Gulf of Finland were stuck and awaiting
icebreaker assistance. The horrible winter of
2010-2011 also struck the biggest (in terms of
annual throughput) port in the BSR – Port of
Primorsk. Heavy ice blocked the port and
forced the port to redirect oil deliveries to
Port of Novorossiysk located on the Black
Sea. Eventually, when Primorsk became operational, it had to increase its oil turnover
to make up for the lost time, so even up to
300 thou. tonnes of oil was exported per day.
Nonetheless, in the middle of March 2011, 20
tankers were stalled in Primorsk, of which 14
were loaded and ready to ply.
Trouble for one, an advantage for others
When some struggle against overwhelming obstacles just like Sisyphus, others take
advantage of the situation. Port of UstLuga might greet a severe winter with open
6/2011 | Baltic Transport Journal | 21