Image Source: North-Western Shipping Company
In 2019, vessels of North-Western Shipping Company carried 5 million tonnes of cargo, which is flat, year-on-year. In the reporting period, the company carried 1.4 million tonnes of grain (about 30% of the total cargo turnover), 1 million tonnes of ferrous metal (over 20%), 0.6 million tonnes of chemical and mineral fertilizers (over 12%), 0.42 million tonnes of timber (8.4%), 0.45 million tonnes of coal (9%) and 0.35 million tonnes of non-ferrous metal (7%). Transportation of other cargoes (concentrate feed, iron and manganese ore, aggregates, metal scrap, clay, aluminium silicate and chemicals) totaled 0.78 million tonnes.
Export cargo, over 3.7 million tonnes, made the bulk of shipments – 74.4% of the total volume, which was flat, year-on-year. Most of the export cargo was formed by grain, timber, ferrous and non-ferrous metal, coal, chemical and mineral fertilizers. Some segments saw the growth: transportation of non-ferrous metal grew almost 2.5 times to 0.23 million tonnes with the increased number of voyages from the port of Saint-Petersburg and southern ports of Russia, transportation of ferrous metal grew to 0.88 million tonnes (+14%) driven by shipment of slabs from the port of Novorossiysk.
Transportation between foreign ports remained flat, year-on-year, at 1.1 million tonnes (23% of the total volume). The result should be attributed to increased transportation of chemical and mineral fertilizers (+26% to 0.35 million tonnes) from Riga and Klaipeda to the Polish ports of Szczecin, Police and Gdansk as well as to 20-pct growth of paperwood transportation from the ports of Latvia and Estonia to the ports of Sweden and transportation of sawn timber from Riga to the Great Britain (to 0.15 million tonnes).
In the reporting period, imports accounted for 1% of the total volume with domestic shipments accounting for 1.6%.
New vessels of NWSC – 10 vessels of Project DCV36 (lead ship – “Amethyst”) and 7 vessels of Project RSD49 “Neva-Leader” – carried 1.6 million tonnes of cargo (32% of the total volume).
