Shaping of new Arctic management structure has been completed in Russia. Several bodies will be in charge of its development: the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, the Ministry of Transport, Rosatom, State Commission for Arctic Development Issues. They face a challenging task: cargo base of the Northern Sea Route confirmed by today does not exceed 53 million tonnes per year with a target of 80 million tonnes to be achieved by 2024.

The draft strategy for the development of service exports till 2025 foresees the construction of a fleet of Russian-flagged containerships. The United Shipbuilding Corporation confirms being involved in preliminary negotiations on construction of such ships. There is a design of a 3,000 TEU container carrier intended for operation in the Southern Basin. Such vessels could be in demand both in southern seas and on the Northern Sea Route.

P.P.Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IO RAS) is the largest Russian research center in the field of oceanology. In his interview with IAA PortNews, Aleksey Sokov, Acting Director of IO RAS, told about the plans on construction of conceptually new research vessels able to perform commercial tasks and about processes in the Arctic and southern seas.

State programme “Development of the Fisheries Industry” will have a new criterion to measure the success of its implementation: the number of ships built under the “keel quota” programme. As of today, construction of 33 units has been approved with a plan to build small-size ships and research ships being elaborated. Local content of some vessels is as high as 60%.

Amid the news about Gazprom’s plans to build a plant for production of liquefied natural gas on the Sakhalin, Mikhail Skigin, co-owner of Port Poronaisk LLC, tells IAA PortNews about the plans on construction of an up-to-date port infrastructure, including that for transshipment and storing of LNG.

For most of 2018, global tanker market was demonstrating low freight rates with a steady recovery seen in the fourth quarter. Analysts expect the market to show an upward trend for the coming two years driven by a steady demand for crude oil and oil products, oil production growth in the USA, favourable fleet balance and IMO regulations. Russia’s Arctic projects also contribute to the growth of the demand for tanker transportation with a priority given to ships of domestic origin.

The situation in Russia’s Baltic ports showed mixed trends in 2018. Cargo traffic through the port of Ust-Luga decreased for the first time having fallen below 100 million tonnes. Meanwhile there is a general downward trend in the segment of crude oil transshipment, an upwards trend in handling of dry bulk cargo and certain redirection of container flows.

The construction of ice-class ships is a strong factor for the development of shipbuilding in Russia. New icebreakers are being built intensely, not without delays, though. Meanwhile, the launch of Shipbuilding Complex “Zvezda” will let Russia build ice-class supply ships and large tankers.

In 2018, allocations for state measures supporting construction of new fleet in Russia exceeded RUB 2 billion, which allowed private customers have more than a hundred of different vessels built by domestic shipyards. Many ships were laid down under state orders.

The year of 2018 was crucial for water transport, shipbuilding and port industries with its key personnel changes, unexpected events and important legislative amendments. A lot is to be done in 2019.