Russia's fast-expanding Baltic port of Primorsk will gain 27 large new ice-class tankers by 2006, making higher export flows possible during the frozen winter months, port operator Transneft told Reuters on Friday.
An increase in the number of large tankers that meet winter restrictions is key to maintaining winter volumes if the port is to boost capacity as planned to one million barrels per day this year and subsequently to 1.25 million bpd.
"Around the world there are 27 ice-class tankers of 110,000 tonnes dead-weight ordered or being built for Primorsk," Transneft President Semyon Vainshtok said during an interview.
Winter rules restrict the standard of tankers that Russian ice-breakers will take to the port through shipping corridors.
With few large tankers in the Baltic meeting these standards, shippers this winter were forced to load a stream of smaller vessels amid soaring freight rates.
It took 46 loading to ship Primorsk's scheduled 860,000 bpd in April. But only 37 were scheduled to load 825,000 bpd in May after winter restrictions ended at the port on April 24. The May programme was dominated by cargoes of around 100,000 tonnes.
Comments
Comments are closed.