World Grain - January 2012 - 42

FEATURE

Russia’s grain transportation challenges
W
hile Russia has the potential to become one of the global grain industry’s truly dominant and reliable exporters, a few hurdles remain. Infrastructure bottlenecks and bureaucracy are problems that Russia’s public and private sectors must continue to work to improve. In November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) issued a report on Russia’s grain port capacity and transportation issues. While Russia does not publish aggregated statistical data on the capacity of its grain export terminals, FAS Moscow’s report makes estimates based on a summary of media information, experts’ estimates and ﬁeld visits. The FAS report noted that while grain analysts estimate Russia’s grain export port capacity to be approximately 25 million tonnes (see chart, page 45, for breakdown), with direct loading of railway wagons into ships as well as using ports from other countries, Russian exports are able to exceed this port capacity number. This estimate includes deep water ports on the Black Sea, shallow water ports of the Volga-Don basin and Azov Sea, and fairly insigniﬁcant port capacity on the Caspian Sea and in the Russian Far East. Russian traders also may export grain through the deep water ports of Ukraine and through some ports of Baltic countries, but the competition with Ukrainian and Kazakh grain in these ports is very intense. FAS said that for all of the Russian ports, the constraint to exports is the speed and capacity of the intake of grain — due to rail logistics, documentation problems, etc. — rather than the actual speed of loading grain onto ships. Nevertheless,
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by Meyer Sosland

Country continues to invest in its ports while logistical bottlenecks and bureaucracy complicate exports
weather can at times delay ship loading at these ports. For example, in Rostov wind can reduce the river draft and thus delay the movement of exports for a number of days. DEEP BLACK SEA PORTS FAS estimates the capacity of Russia’s deep water ports on the Black Sea at 13 to 15 million tonnes per year. The dominant grain port on the Black Sea is the Port of Novorossiysk, which has two terminals and an estimated capacity to export 11 to 12 million tonnes of grain per year. The Port of Tuapse has a new grain terminal with an estimated capacity of 2 to 2.5 million tonnes a year. The third is the Port of Taman, which has a very small grain export capacity at present but has ambitious plans to expand in the near future. The Port of Novorossiysk consists of two major grain terminals — the “old” terminal and the “new” terminal. The capacity of the “new” privately-owned terminal is estimated at approximately 6 to 7 million tonnes per year, and the “old” terminal, called the Novorossiysk Bread Combine (NKHP),
January 2012 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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World Grain - January 2012

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