Vistino (Leningrad region) – PhosAgro CEO Andrey Guryev today visited the Ultramar Terminal being built at the port of Ust-Luga for the transhipment of mineral fertilizers.
Mr Guryev and Andrey Bonch-Bruevich, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ultramar, which is building the terminal, inspected the deep-water port, which will be able to receive Panamax-class vessels, one of the largest types of cargo ship in the world. In June, a freight rail link was launched that will connect to the terminal. A warehouse facility is also being built that has a storage capacity of up to 1 million tonnes of mineral fertilizers.
Once construction is completed in 2021, the terminal will be the largest in Europe in terms of simultaneous cargo storage capacity; in the future, it will be able to tranship up to 25 million tonnes of product per year.
“We showed our support for this project at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2019, when PhosAgro and Ultramar signed a long-term agreement for transhipment through the Ultramar Terminal”, said PhosAgro’s CEO following his visit to the terminal. Today, we are pleased to note that the project has reached an advanced stage. The new terminal may handle the transhipment of more than 3 million tonnes of PhosAgro fertilizers per year, which will make it a crucial facility for the Company.
“As part of PhosAgro’s development strategy to 2025, we plan to increase the export of fertilizers by 25 per cent, which is why we are already analysing the logistics involved in delivering additional volumes of product, as well as options for optimising current costs and diversifying the transhipment channels now being used. We are closely following the construction of the terminal in Ust-Luga, and I am confident that, once complete, it will enable us to ship steadily increasing volumes of our fertilizers in the long term.”
“The Ultramar Terminal is a unique transhipment facility, the launch of which will eliminate the shortage of capacities needed to ship fertilizers through ports in the north-west [of Russia]”, said Mr Bonch-Bruevich. “One of the features that will set it apart is the rate at which it can offload rail freight and load vessels. In addition, it will also provide the flexibility that mineral fertilizer producers and their customers require: the ability to store and quickly load the widest-possible range of products on individual vessels.
“The trust of our partners, and of PhosAgro first and foremost, is helping us to overcome the difficulties associated with the implementation of such a large-scale project. As of now, construction is ahead of schedule, and we expect the transhipment of PhosAgro fertilizers through the Ultramar Terminal to begin this November.”