The share of transshipment of agricultural cargoes in the Mariupol seaport is increasing, as a result of which the management of the seaport intends to continue to develop this area of operations. It plans to build a new grain terminal, reorient its warehouse from general cargoes toward agricultural cargoes, and build new facilities for storage and transfer of oil.
The Mariupol seaport’s Director Oleksandr Oliinyk announced this in an interview with the CFTS portal.
According to Oliinyk, the seaport has registered a significant increase in the flow of grain cargoes. "We handled 263,200 tons of cargo in the first eight months of the year, which is 214.3% of the volume that we handled in the same period of last year," he said.
The seaport is working on diversification of its cargo flows because the seaport is cut off from some traditional shippers in the north of the Donetsk region (the Yenakiieve, Alchevsk, and Makiivka iron and steel works, the Donetskstal steel plant, clay pits, and coal mines) as a result of the temporary occupation of part of the Donbas by militants.
In particular, the seaport has decided to build a grain terminal with an annual capacity of 2 million tons. The terminal will be built in two phases. It is expected to reach its full capacity in 2019. The total cost of the project will be UAH 800 million.
In addition, the seaport has already signed a contract with an investor to modernize its old warehouse for general cargoes with the aim of re-orientating it toward storage of agricultural cargoes. UAH 100 million will be invested in this project. The modernization will increase the volume of simultaneous storage to 30,000 tons and allow reception of goods from all modes of transport.
"We are working with one more investor on a project for construction of facilities for storage and pumping of oil directly into ships. Thus, we have a modern, high-tech cluster for agricultural cargoes, the type of which has not yet been seen in the Sea of Azov," the director of the Mariupol seaport said.
