Russia will start building a new grain terminal at its Black Sea port of Novorossisk in the next few months, boosting the country's export capacity by 3.6 million tonnes a year, the project head said on Thursday.
"The construction of the terminal will take 22 months and will require over 50 million euros ($60.39 million) in investments," Mikhail Petrenko, general director of the Novorossiisk Grain Terminal firm, which is implementing the project, told Reuters.
He declined to name the owners of the firm, but a spokeswoman for Agros, the agricultural arm of Interros financial and industrial group, said it was involved in the project together with a Russian commercial and an investment bank. "But Agros is not the main participant in the project," she said.
Petrenko said the new facility would be able to load vessels of 50,000-60,000 tonnes.
He estimated the capacity of the existing grain terminal at Novorossiisk, Russia's only deep port on the Black Sea, at two million tonnes a year.
Russia's Agriculture Ministry expects the country to export at least five million tonnes of grain in the current 2004/05 season started in July, although analysts believe exports may be substantially higher.
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