Sea

© Vidmantas Matutis photo

Spausdinti   Supplement to article

Klaipeda port dredging project up to 14.5 meters, planned next year, will open up new investment needs.

Not enough railways

President of Lithuanian Stevedoring Company Aloyzas Kuzmarskis said that the cargo handling this year grew up to 36 million tons and next year will reach 40 million tons. In particular, cargo handling has increased in the southern part of port. In 2009, both parts of port, northern and southern, had a similar cargo handling, reaching about 14 million tons. In 2010, the handling capacity of northern port’s part remained similar, but that the southern part has increased its handling up to 17 million tons. This year, the northern part has loading capacity of 16 million tons, while the southern has more than 20 million tons. It is projected that next year, the northern part will handle 17 million tons of cargo and the southern will handle up to 23 million tons.

Great impulse to develop the southern part of port will be provided by the dredging of shipping channel up to 14.5 meters from the mouth of the River Dane to the ferry terminal. “We can deepen our port, build the best equipment, but if we do not have good cargo entry and exit from the port, we will be left with a job half-finished,” – claimed Klaipeda Smelte General Director Rimantas Juska.

Today, Klaipeda Smelte has the biggest problems with railway lines in the port. Through it, the cargo rolls to bulk cargo terminal. Here, the cargo loading has increased from 1.3 million tons per year to 3.7 million tons per annum. In Klaipeda Smelte, the cargo handling has increased from 1.9 million in 2009 to 2.7 million tons of cargo in 2011.

New opportunities to open up

The southern part will develop faster than the northern part. The companies working in the northern part such as Klaipeda Oil, Cargo Terminal and Klaipeda Stevedoring Company (KLASCO) do not have any space for further expansion. There are no extra territories.

Meanwhile, the southern part, extending from the mouth of the River Dane, has extra territories in which new terminals are being built. In this part, ten port cargo handling companies do their work. Almost all of them are increasing their handling capacities: KLASCO Sea Ferry has increased from 3.6 million tons in 2009 to 5.7 million in 2011; Bega has increased from 3.5 million to 4.1 million tons and Klaipeda Container Terminal increased from 2.3 million to 2.9 million tons. Western Stevedoring manages about 1 million tons of cargo, while Wood-Bay Terminal about half a million tons. So far, minor amounts of cargo are handled in Klaipeda Passenger and Cargo Terminal, Mabre LPC, Cabotage and Klaipeda Refrigerator companies.

“The southern part of port has more development opportunities. There were a lot of problems with depths and railway development. Dredging the port up to 14.5 meters and reconstructing Draugyste and Rimkai railway stations, developing railway lines, setting up a direct exit from Draugyste station to Klaipeda-Pagegiai railway line will help to increase transport capacities. Due to the rapid growth of freight flows, this alone might not be enough,” – commented Mr. Kuzmarskis.

Hard to live up to studies

Mr. Kuzmarskis has submitted data, stating that the northern part has the demand for 1280 rail cars per day and the southern part has the demand for 1350 rail cars per day.  It is predicted that in the year 2020, the northern part will require 1800 and the southern part will need 3190 rail cars per day. This means that both in the northern and southern parts, railway lines will have to be developed. Mr. Kuzmarskis offered to create the railway lines development programme for the year 2020.

It would be wrong to claim that the railways were not reconstructed in the port of Klaipeda. Such projects received a significant amount of funds from EU. The main purpose of these reconstructions was to be prepared for acceptance of train stocks of six-thousand. For this purpose, it was necessary to extend the length of railway lines in the stations.

Also, a number of works was carried out to develop railways from stations to companies. However, this is not enough.

“In 2005, the port railway development programme for the year 2015 was approved in Klaipeda. Subsequently, the programme was adjusted. A lot of positions of the programme were removed or changed, making it unclear,” – commented Mr. Kuzmarskis. There were additional studies carried out, whose findings did not reflect the development of railway lines in 2015.