Hutch wades in

First Container Terminal handled 524,987TEUs in the first three quarters of the year, up from 531,231TEUs for the whole of 2004 across its five berths. But the US$167m first stage of the UstLuga terminal, to become operational in 2007, will have a throughput of up to 900,000TEUs a year and a further three planned stages would pushing capacity to 3.3m TEUs.

The provenance of the Ust-Luga project is interesting. National Container had a 74% stake in the terminal with the balance held by the local port company in a 49-year concession agreement. In 2003 Hamburg-based Eurogate took a 26% interest after agreeing to cooperate on the terminal’s development.

The Russian government will fund around US$60m of the total cost of the first stage including dredging a 4.5km approach channel providing 14.5 increasing to 16 metre depth, land reclamation and quay wall construction. The remaining US$107m is reportedly coming from the private sector and will be used to finance the development of other terminal infrastructure including cargo handling equipment.