PRESS: Govt to exclude Taman dry port from state upgrade plan

MOSCOW, Aug 24 (PRIME) -- The Russian government plans to exclude construction of a 183 billion ruble dry port area in the port of Taman from a state infrastructure upgrade plan, Kommersant business daily reported on Monday quoting documents of a July meeting of the government’s transport commission.

The documents say that the project was suspended and its exclusion from the federal plan was initiated. A representative of state sea port operator Rosmorport told Kommersant that the Transport Ministry supported the exclusion as major cargo senders Kuzbassrazrezugol and Siberian Coal Energy Company lost interest in it due to contraction in coal prices.

The government has been discussing construction of the dry port terminal in Taman since 2012. The project’s first stage should have been finished in 2023 and ensure annual capacity of 62 million tonnes. Later it should have been expanded to more than 90 million tonnes.

Besides the Taman dry port, the government also wants to exclude construction of the Sever coal terminal and the Zarubino grain terminal from the state plan. Multi-industry holding Summa Group planned to build them until 2024, but suspended the plans after arrest of the company’s core owner Ziyavudin Magomedov in 2018.

Kommersant reported that the government plans to replace the three projects with several others, including a 31.8 billion ruble expansion of the Daltransugol coal terminal’s capacity to 40 million tonnes, Tehnotrans’ 9.4 billion ruble construction of the Vysotsk grain terminal, and Agroholding-Taman’s 32.5 billion ruble construction of a grain terminal in the port of Taman.

(74.0999 rubles – U.S. $1)

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