Port of Tallinn Poised for Containerized Growth
With liquid cargoes down in the past five years, chairman of the Port of Tallinn AS management board says containerized shipping on the Baltic has much room for growth and said the company's recession-era investment in Muuga had been vindicated.
Ain Kaljurand said that transport volumes are 15-20 percent off the volumes in the mid-2000s but that judging from the core of "old Europe", Estonia has room for three- or fourfold growth in this area.
Liquid cargoes are down for several reasons, chiefly the opening of the Ust-Luga port, part of a policy of Russia exporting directly through its own ports rather than sending petroleum products in railway cars through countries such as Estonia.
Kaljurand noted that the port of Sillamäe has been opened on the Estonian side. "Knowing that the liquid cargo volumes could theoretically decrease, we are trying to do everything we can to keep the decrease as minimal as possible," he said.
He said the planning for containerized transport is paying off. "When we started planning for containerized cargo in 2007 and made investments in 2008 for establishing a new container terminal, we received quite a lot of criticism as that was the beginning of the crisis and freight volumes fell significantly. But if we look at the situation today in containerized transport, it has been on the upswing in our region, an estimated 30 percent per year on the Baltic Sea, and there is not enough infrastructure today. That has given us a good possibility for growth in the years ahead."
He said that Port of Tallinn investment was complete as of 2011, with an operator selected and the operator is now launching investments into the new container area at the Muuga Harbor.
"The operator plans to develop the area in increments and it should be fully operational in 2014," said Kaljurand.
Asked whether the increased activity would come at the detriment of another port, Kaljurand said it is not a zero-sum game. He said there is potential for 12-15 million TEU of containers to pass through the Baltic ports in five to eight years.
Kristopher Rikken