Last year, Russia had to face challenges that completely changed the usual logistics schemes. Now we need to decide how to fix the situation.

The sharp reorientation of Russian exports from West to East had a strong impact on the work of seaports, including container ones.

For example, the ports of the North-West are generally designed to ship up to 5 million TEU per year, but now they are operating in conditions of a huge surplus of capacities: we are talking about the supply of no more than 1 million TEU per year, so the remaining potential of the ports remains unused.

Moreover, there are no signs that the situation can normalize in the coming years.

At the same time, there was a significant increase in exports through the eastern ports.

For example, according to the Eastern Stevedoring Company, 17% more containers were transported in the first quarter of this year than in the same period last year.

However, this growth is not many times — in contrast to the reduction in the rate of exports through Western ports.

The problem is that the infrastructure of the East is simply not ready for multiple growth. This requires huge investments and time.

How do Russian companies solve the problem?

 

On the one hand, Western ports are diversifying.

For example, those who previously worked with containers are trying to transship mineral fertilizers. This is not a typical load for them, however, it allows to realize part of the capacity.

On the other hand, Eastern companies will improve the infrastructure.

And it’s not so much about the enlargement of ports, the construction of additional berths, but about the optimization of work.

For example, there is close cooperation with Russian Railways to speed up the process of transporting containers arriving at the port and departing from it.

For this, in particular, Russian Railways is mastering the technology of transporting containers in gondola cars, and in 2023 it is planned to double the volume, and the share of containers transported in gondola cars will be at least 90%.

What’s preventing ports from upgrading?

 

The main difficulty is the high risks for the investor.

After all, he needs to invest huge amounts of money, and it is always possible that the port infrastructure will not be used for one reason or another (including geopolitical ones).

But Rosmorport returns to the investor his investments only if the new object shows a certain cargo turnover.

However, this scheme has been working for a long time and generally has proven itself, so we can hope that the optimization of the ports will be carried out in the foreseeable future.