Lugaport terminal in Ust-Luga has risen in price by one and a half times

The cost of the project for the construction of the Lugaport terminal in the seaport of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad Region has grown by one and a half times, a representative of the Novotrans company, which is implementing the project, told Vedomosti. The total investment, according to him, is now estimated at 70 billion rubles, of which 30 billion rubles. – Own funds of Novotrans.

He also said that on August 5, the railway traffic was launched following the completion of the construction of the start-up complex of the Luzhskaya station park and the first stage of laying access roads to the terminal.

Since August 2019, Novotrans has been building the universal trading terminal Lugaport as part of the federal project “Development of seaports”. Initially, the total investment was estimated at 46.5 billion rubles. Lugaport will become one of the largest terminals in the Leningrad region, it is designed for transshipment of bulk, general, grain and food cargo with a total volume of 24.3 million tons per year. The terminal will be able to receive up to 1,100 railcars per day from the junction station Luzhskaya Generalnaya. Vessels of Panamax, New-Panamax, Baby-Capesize sizes will be handled at five berths.

To implement the project of connecting the terminal to the railway infrastructure, Russian Railways (Russian Railways) carried out work on the development of the Luzhskaya station park and the comprehensive reconstruction of the Mga-Gatchina-Weimarn-Ivangorod section.

The president and main owner of Novotrans, Konstantin Goncharov, whose words were conveyed by the press service, noted that, “despite the difficulties, the construction is on schedule.” The milestone of the project will be the commissioning of the first stage with a capacity of 8 million tons by the end of 2022, a representative of Novotrans specified. And in 2025 the project will be fully completed.

According to Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev, who participated in the opening ceremony of the railway communication, in the context of changing logistics chains, the creation of a new terminal in the port of the Gulf of Finland will significantly increase the volume of cargo delivered by sea.

The cost of cargo redirected from the Baltic ports, according to Novotrans, will be about 17.5 billion rubles. in year.

Due to the strengthening of European sanctions against Russia after the start of a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine in the spring and summer of 2022, domestic producers faced restrictions in the ports of the Baltic states (the fifth package of sanctions includes a ban on entry into the harbors of the EU countries of ships flying the Russian flag). From 2017 to 2020, the volume of transshipment of Russian cargo in the ports of the Baltic States amounted to about 40 million tons per year. The ports of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were closed for the transit of Russian export cargo, including fertilizers. As a result, in five months of 2022, according to Vedomosti, the export of fertilizers fell by 24% to 12.5 million tons (see the issue of June 10, 2022).

Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of Infoline Analytics, noted that the advantage of Lugaport “is its versatility, as well as the fact that this is the first specialized Russian terminal in the Baltic with the ability to transship grain and food cargo.” “At a time when relations with the Baltic countries have deteriorated dramatically, Lugaport provides Russian exporters with the necessary capacity. The income from the transshipment of only redirected cargo from the ports of the Baltic countries may exceed 17 billion rubles. a year,” he said.

According to Sergey Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service, taking into account the difficulties in the world commodity markets, the new grain port should strengthen the country’s export opportunities, which is especially important in the light of problems with the uninterrupted supply of the Kaliningrad region.

Grishunin believes that the increase in the cost of the project over the three years “was inevitable.” The expert also suggested that the deadlines for commissioning the first stage of the terminal could be shifted by a year: “A more realistic deadline is the end of 2023.” Burmistrov argues that since the impact of anti-Russian sanctions on the project is minimal, the investor will be able to meet the deadlines for its implementation.

According to the Association of Commercial Sea Ports (ASOP), for six months of 2022, the cargo turnover of the seaports of the Baltic Sea amounted to 123.3 million tons (-0.2%), of which the volume of dry cargo transshipment was 48.6 million tons (-15 .6%). The cargo turnover of the port of Ust-Luga amounted to 58.4 million tons (+10.3%), the Big Port of St. Petersburg – 21.4 million tons (-30.1%), Primorsk – 30.5 million tons (+16.8 %), Vysotsk – 7.9 million tons (-6.0%).