Sea Port of St. Petersburg sees 5-percent growth in 1Q volumes

Sea Port of St. Petersburg JSC (SP St.Pb, part of UCL Holding) in the first quarter 2018 handled 1.89 million tonnes, which represents a 5% growth on the same period a year earlier. The performance result was driven primarily by increased volumes of ferrous metals, “big bags” and containers handled at the port.

In the reporting period, Sea Port of St. Petersburg saw a 10-percent increase in ferrous metals volume reaching 1.1 million tonnes. The growth is contributed to the expansion by the port’s anchor clients in their export cargo range, including iron rod, reinforcement and railway rails. SP St. Petersburg ensured the efficient handling of increased ferrous metal exports at its quays thanks to the implementation of a range of activities. Overall, Sea Port of St. Petersburg is able to handle more than ten types of the cargo simultaneously.

However, shipments of non-ferrous metals in the three-month period at Sea Port of St. Petersburg terminal fell 11%, to 356,000 tonnes, due to volatility in the aluminum markets followed by a decline in the product exports.

Since the beginning of the year, Sea Port of St. Petersburg increased handling of scrap metal. The cargo volume rose twofold on the same period last year, reaching 160,000 tonnes, due to growing scrap exports to the Republic of Turkey. The company provided additional solutions for its customers arranging dedicated sites for accumulation of the cargo shipments and increased ship loading rate. Thanks to the undertaken measures, cargo owners, when shipping from the SP SPb’s terminal, were able to adjust their logistics costs by reducing the charter costs.

In the first quarter handling of fertilizer in “big bags” at SP St.Pb terminal soared by 65% to 64,000 tonnes, of wood pellets – by 11% also to 64,000 tonnes. This result is attributed to the available warehouse infrastructure, which enabled the terminal operator to improve storage efficiency and to expedite accumulation of particular shiploads.

In general, handling of general cargo by SP St.Pb increased by 5% to 1.75 million tonnes.

The three-month volume of bulk goods handled at the berths of Sea Port of St. Petersburg was down 8% on the same period a year ago, to 48,000 tonnes.

In the reporting period container throughput at SP St.Pb terminal rose 40% on the same period last year to 6,062 TEU. Sea Port of St. Petersburg continued to develop its own range of container services, in addition to transshipment operations providing additional container handling solutions.

Since the beginning of this year, exports accounted for 97% of total throughput, imports – 3%. As compared to the first quarter of 2017, the volume of exports handled at SP St.Pb increased by 10%, to 1.83 million tonnes, while imports dropped by 2.5 times, to 56,000 tonnes.