The large port of St. Petersburg stopped handling saltpeter
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As Kommersant found out, the Big Port of St. Petersburg stopped handling saltpeter amid drone attacks. According to Kommersant’s information, in the future the authorities plan to move the transshipment of saltpeter outside the city, presumably to Ust-Luga. For the port of St. Petersburg, this means a loss of a significant 3 million tons of cargo per year. Ust-Luga is not yet ready to accept saltpeter, as the port needs to modernize its infrastructure. Participants in the chemical market say that they are now partially working at the warehouse, which has not yet caused problems due to the high demand for saltpeter within the country during the sowing season.
As Kommersant learned, the Big Port of St. Petersburg stopped transshipping saltpeter in February. According to a Kommersant source familiar with the situation, we are talking about volumes of about 3 million tons per year. For the port, which is already in a difficult position due to the loss of trade operations with Europe, this is a rather significant blow.
According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, operations were stopped due to a government ban, and a decision was made to move the transshipment of saltpeter outside the city limits. As one of Kommersant’s sources says, after the drone attack on the St. Petersburg oil terminal in January, Governor Alexander Beglov fears a possible sabotage with devastating consequences for the city. Ammonium nitrate is potentially explosive. Ust-Luga is named as a new place for saltpeter transshipment.
From February 13 until the end of the month, Russian Railways introduced restrictions on the loading of ammonium nitrate and ammonium nitrate to the stations Avtovo and Avtovo-ex., Novy Port and Novy Port-ex, Bronka and Bronka-ex., Predportovaya and Predportovaya-ex. October Railway to all consignees. The company explained this measure by “circumstances arising from restrictions on cargo transshipment in the Big Port of St. Petersburg.” The ban has been extended until March, says one of Kommersant’s interlocutors.
As sources close to chemical companies told Kommersant, at the moment, manufacturers who transshipped through the port of St. Petersburg are looking for other export options. This is complicated by the fact that there are currently not enough port capacities for transshipment of fertilizers in Russia, and those that exist have already been contracted.
The most obvious option is the terminal in Ust-Luga, but in order to redirect volumes of saltpeter from St. Petersburg there, its infrastructure needs to be modernized to meet the new requirements for shipment in reinforced containers. Therefore, now chemical enterprises are partially working “for storage”. As Kommersant’s interlocutors assure, there is no critical situation at the moment, since there is high demand for saltpeter in the domestic market amid the sowing campaign.
Installation and approval of new equipment in Ust-Luga and other ports will require significant funds and time, Kommersant sources in the chemical market say. The transfer of transshipment to Ust-Luga will not increase the logistics costs of chemical companies, notes one of them. But if the transshipment is moved to another port “even further,” the difference could be significant, he believes.
Officially, stevedoring and chemical companies and the Russian Association of Fertilizer Manufacturers do not comment on the situation. The office of the relevant vice-governor of St. Petersburg, Kirill Polyakov, did not promptly respond to Kommersant’s request.
According to Nadezhda Malysheva from PortNews, the removal of saltpeter outside the city limits is an expected step, since there is a general trend towards transferring the transshipment of dangerous and non-environmentally friendly cargo from St. Petersburg. Coal and scrap metal have long been banned, she recalls. There was also a project for the complete redevelopment of the Big Port of St. Petersburg. In 2021, the then controlling shareholder of UMMC and the current shareholder of Transmashholding, Andrei Bokarev, proposed moving all port facilities from St. Petersburg to Ust-Luga, and developing the vacated area (see “Kommersant” dated March 31, 2021). Then stevedores based in the port of St. Petersburg strongly opposed this initiative (see “Kommersant” dated April 2, 2021). At the end of 2021, the governor of the Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, said that Primorsk was being considered as an alternative to Ust-Luga. But after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, they did not officially return to the discussion of this project.
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