Russia News

Belfast Harbour Hits Record Cargo in 2018

The major maritime hub in Northern Ireland Belfast Harbour handled a record 24.6 million tonnes of cargo in 2018, up 3.8% on the previous year thanks to a major increase in the number of freight vehicles passing through the port, which rose to a high of 532,000, latest figures show."Growth was led by a strong increase in freight vehicle carryings on Stena Line’s services to Great Britain, rising by 3% to a record 532,000 freight vehicles and for the second consecutive year more than 1.5m passengers passed through the Port…

Russia Plans New Grain Terminal in Crimea

Russia plans to build a grain terminal in Crimea at a cost of more than 1.7 billion roubles ($25.4 million), the RIA news agency quoted the head of the region as saying on Thursday.Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, drawing sanctions from the West that created legal risks for the region's grain exports.

St Petersburg Port Cargo Handling Up by 12%

Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg (CTSP), a company of UCL Port, stevedoring division of the international transportation group UCL Holding, handled 7.7 million tonnes of cargo showing a 12-pct increase versus the result of 2017.The increase of cargo traffic is attributed the development of yards dedicated for transshipment of cast iron, metal scrap, ore, mineral fertilizers and containers, said a release from the operator providing dry cargo transshipment in Saint-Petersburg port…

Milaha Launches BSX

Middle East's maritime and logistics company Milaha (Qatar Navigation) will start a direct container shipping service connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in its first foray into Europe.According to a press release from the Qatar-based maritime transport and logistics conglomerate the new feeder service marks Milaha’s first European service linking the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The BSX demonstrates Milaha’s commitment to deliver reliable and agile services to its customers and partners globally.The BSX rotation is Piraeus (Greece)…

Huge Increase in Arctic shipping

Data from Russia’s ports and Northern Sea Route show that the volume of goods being shipped out into the Arctic waterway are up by 25 percent 2018.According to information from the Russian Transport Ministry, a total of 92.7 million tons was handled by regional seaports, of which almost 70 percent was oil products and liquified natural gas.The biggest increases came in Sabetta, which sits on the icy Yamal Peninsula in the Kara Sea, according to Bellona. With Novatek’s $27 billion Yamal LNG project now in commercial production…

Svitzer Appoints Jeeninga, McKeating as Cluster Managers

Svitzer, aprovider of harbor and terminal towage to the global shipping industry, has recently appointed Fred Jeeninga as Cluster Managing Director, Continental Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, Georgia) and Maurice McKeating as Cluster Managing Director, UK South.Fred Jeeninga holds nearly 20 years of experience from the marine service industry. His work has taken him to Russia, Germany, Denmark, Brazil, and the Caribbean. He has been with Svitzer since 2009, most recently as Operations…

Offshore Terminal Plan Slowed by U.S. Shutdown

The U.S. government shutdown has delayed Enterprise Products Partners LP's plan to build a major U.S. crude export terminal off Houston, blocking the pipeline operator from filing paperwork with U.S. regulators, an executive said on Wednesday.Enterprise plans to file a 10,000-page permit application with the U.S. Maritime Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard as soon as the U.S. government reopens. It takes about a year for regulators to process an application for a deep-water terminal."Tell me when the government opens and I'll tell you when it happens…

Eurosib's First Transit Container Train Crossed Grodekovo

CJSC Eurosib SPb - Transport Systems  tgether with the Zhengzhou International Hub company (ZIH) started the first transit container train through border crossing of Grodekovo (Far East railway, RZD). The Container train follows the route Hamburg (Germany) - Zhengzhou (China).The first train with 43 forty-foot containers was dispatched on 28 December. On January 12, the train reached the border crossing Grodekovo  (Russia) - Suifenhe (China).Normally, within couple of days, it will arrive at final destination. At the same time, Eurosib is preparing the opposite direction train.

Turkmen Oil Exports via Russia’s Novorossiisk Port to Resume

Exports of Turkmen oil via Russia's Black sea port of Novorossiisk will resume in February, four market sources said.Turkmenistan stopped transit of its oil via Russia in 2016 and has been exporting all its crude via the Azeri Caspian port of Baku.Pumping Turkmen oil through the Makhachkala-Novorossiisk pipeline could add as much as 200,000 tonnes of crude per month into Russia’s Transneft system. Turkmenistan is currently shipping oil via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline…

Russia Launches First-ever Arctic Satellite

The first Russian satellite for weather forecasting and monitoring climate and environment in the Arctic region, Arktika-M, is planned to be sent to near-earth orbit in June 2019.Sputnik quoted Russian space industry source saying: "The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Baikonur cosmodrome with Fregat booster and the first hydrometeorological satellite Arktika-M is scheduled for June 2019."According to sources, the equipment installed on Arktika-M satellite will…

World Seaborne Coal Trade Rose 3.7% in 2018

World coal seaborne trade grew 3.7 percent last year helped by higher output in India, Indonesia and Russia, Germany's VDKI coal importers lobby said on Friday.Imports and exports rose to 1.202 billion tonnes from 1.159 billion tonnes in 2017, VDKI Managing Director Franz-Josef Wodopia said in an speech made available to Reuters.Of the total, trade in steam coal used in power stations rose by 3.6 percent to 920 million tonnes.Trade in coking coal used for steelmaking rose by 4.4 percent to 281 million tonnes…

CMA CGM Unifies Containerships and MacAndrews Brands

CMA CGM will retain the only Containerships brand for its intra-European operations, giving up MacAndrews, which had already erased OPDR."Containerships: from April 1st, 2019 a single brand resulting from the union of two experts of intra-European transport CMA CGM reinforces its strategy aimed at densifying its regional coverage to the benefit of its clients," said a press release from MacAndrews.According to the French container transportation and shipping company, by joining the forces of two recognized experts of intra-European multimodal transport…

The Tipping Point: U.S. Exports more Oil than it Imports

The United States last week exported more crude oil and fuel than it imported for the first time on record, underscoring the nation's growing influence as a supplier of oil to the world.Exports of crude surged in the week to Nov. 30 to more than 3.2 million barrels per day, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Thursday.When adding in all imports and exports of crude and refined products, for the week the U.S. exported a net 211,000 bpd – the first time that has happened, according to U.S.

For JAXPORT, LNG Spells Success

‘A thousand firsts’ and a constantly growing list of players underscores the rapid development of LNG as a fuel – especially along the East Coast of the United States.Click on the headlines for the phrase “LNG Bunkering” and you immediately learn that it is an industry of a thousand firsts and a constantly growing list of players.“Russia's Novatek ships first LNG cargo to China via Arctic; Yamal LNG ships first LNG cargo to Spain; Qatar ships first LNG to Japan, signs accord; Japan orders its first LNG bunker vessel…

Port of Kiel: Passenger Volume Up, Cargo Down

More than 2.2 million passengers and again over 7 million cargo tons handledKiel continues to pursue its growth course in passenger traffic posting a 4.2 % increase with 2.2 million travelers. At the same time, the port’s cargo sector was unable to match the top results of the reference period (2017: 7.4 million tons, +14.3 %). The handling performance decreased by 3.5 % to 7.15 tons of cargo in 2018. In order to further improve the port’s infrastructure, investment activities have accelerated once again.

Uniper intensifies LNG plans with Japan's Mitsui OSK

Mitsui OSK Lines to own, fund FSRU in Wilhelmshaven; FSRU could be operational in H2 2022.Energy group Uniper on Monday entered agreements with Japanese shipping group Mitsui OSK Lines to handle potential deliveries of liquefied natural (LNG) gas into Germany.Discussions about LNG have flared up recently as the German government wants to diversify away from pipeline gas arriving from Russia, Norway and the Netherlands.

Russia's First FSRU to Arrive at Kaliningrad to Start Up LNG Imports

Russia's first liquefied natural gas (LNG) floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) is expected to dock at the port of Kaliningrad on Dec. 18, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.The FSRU, called Marshal Vasilevskiy, is being installed at Kaliningrad - a city separated from Russia and bordering with Lithuania and Poland - by Russian energy major Gazprom in a move to bypass pipeline gas deliveries via Lithuania in case there are any disruptions in gas transit.The FSRU will be the first LNG import facility in Russia…

Arc7 Class Arctic Vessels for Yamal LNG Facility

A new ice-breaking liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker of the Arc7 class has begun sea trials by South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) around the island of Geoje, Refinitiv Eikon data shows.The Nikolay Zubkov, formerly known as Hull DSME 2429, exited DSME's port on Geoje on Tuesday and has zig-zagged across the Korea Strait, the data showed. Ship trials for previous Arc7 carriers now in operation have lasted several months.The Arc7 tankers, for Novatek's Yamal LNG facility in northern Russia…

Sovcomflot completes USD 900 mln in Foreign Investment

Russia’s maritime shipping company Sovcomflot has announced that it has entered into a new USD 264 million six-year revolving credit facility with a consortium of five leading international banks.The completion of this credit facility marks the successful finalisation of SCF’s 2018 financing plan, with total new debt capital raised this year amounting to circa USD 900 million, said Nikolay Kolesnikov, Senior Executive Vice-President, Chief Financial Officer of PAO Sovcomflot."The fund allows us to fully address the Group’s mid-term financing requirements…

US, Russian Energy Majors Join to Push LNG in India, Japan

Russia's energy major Rosneft and US ExxonMobil plan to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in a consortium with Indian and Japanese partners, spreading the estimated $15 billion cost, Reuters reported.The report said that  the LNG production project will come up in partnership with Japan’s SODECO and India’s ONGC Videsh.All four companies are partners in the Sakhalin-1 fields from which the requisite gas for the facility will be drawn, however Rosneft and Exxon had previously planned to build the facility without the other partners.As well as spreading the costs among more stakeholders…

LNG Carrier Hits Berth in Russia

The Grand Elena tanker, carrying 145,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has hit a loading berth at Russia's Sakhalin Energy project on Tuesday and its departure has been delayed, a spokeswoman for the project told Reuters.She said it was not yet clear when the vessel would depart the port. Japan is the main consumer of the Sakhalin Energy LNG, which produces more than 10 million tonnes of the frozen gas per year.There has been no leaks of gas from the tanker and no one was injured, the spokeswoman added.(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)

Russia's Abramovich, Partner to Buy TransContainer Stake from VTB

Roman Abramovich and a business partner will buy a 24.84 percent stake in Russia's largest freight container operator TransContainer from VTB bank, two industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.Abramovich, best known in Britain as the owner of the English Premier League soccer club Chelsea, and his business partner Alexander Abramov together already own 24.5 percent in TransContainer via their Enisei Capital vehicle.Russian shipping group Fesco sold 25.1 percent in TransContainer to VTB and an unidentified investor in October.

CMA CGM Completes Containerships Acquisition

The CMA CGM Group has completed the acquisition of Containerships, a container-transportation and logistics company.The European Commission authorized this transaction on October 22nd. Containerships, which specializes in the intra-European market, will complement CMA CGM’s service offering.Containerships, a European door-to-door specialistFounded in 1966, Containerships is a Finnish company specialized in Intra-European containerized trade with 690 employees. Containerships offers its clients a complete range of high-quality services…

Gulfport’s Long Road Back From Hurricane Katrina

When Jonathan Daniels, executive director of the Mississippi State Port Authority at Gulfport spoke to the audience at the annual state of the port luncheon July 27, 2018 at the newly rebuilt Island View Casino, he had a lot to offer in terms of jobs. And he had two aces in the hole: SeaOne, an untested compressed liquefied gas company and Yilport, a terminal company operated by an ambitious Turkish port developer. Both had letters of intent dating back two years with much to do.As has been the case since before Daniels took over from Don Allee in 2013…

Cargo Ships Caught in Russia-Ukraine Storm

Russia-Ukraine naval clash followed shipping holdups Ships bound for Ukrainian ports say they are held up while those bound for Russian ports go through.When the Island Bay cargo ship arrived from Beirut at the Kerch Strait, gateway to the Azov Sea, it sailed into a perfect storm of geopolitics and bad weather.The following day, Russia opened fire on three Ukrainian naval ships, impounded them and detained their sailors, some of them wounded. It then blocked the strait by putting…

Lithuania Plans to Buy an FSRU

Lithuania has given the go ahead to state-owned Klaipedos Nafta to purchase a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage vessel by late 2024, as it shores up energy supplies and reduces its reliance on Russian natural gas.Klaipedos Nafta is currently leasing a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), called Independence, from Norway's Hoegh LNG.The use of the vessel has allowed Lithuania to import LNG since 2014, breaking the monopoly Russia's Gazprom had on natural gas supply to the country as well as neighboring Latvia and Estonia."This will keep us able…