Draft road map to help reduce fish shipping costs along Northern Sea Route
Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries (FAF) has drafted a Road Map designed to help reduce fish shipping costs from the Russian Far East to the country’s West while also aiming to boost the volumes shipped along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), reports Megafishnet.com.
According to FAF, in 2020 several cruises had to be arranged along the NSR but the poor salmon season in Kamchatka, as well as the failure to contract some collateral cargo did not allow the necessary volumes to be formed. Finally, only one voyage of the "Northern Sea Route" atomic lighter has taken place from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Saint Petersburg delivering 206 refrigerated containers with 5 500MT of fish products.
Analysis of the results of the cruise showed that the cost of delivery along the Route with unloading of fish products was about 20 rubles per kg. At the same time, the sea component of the transportation costs was only 6.5 rubles per kg, or just over 25% in the total. In fact, most costs were related to the need to rent refrigerated containers, stevedoring operations in the port and transportation from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
According to the draft road map, the costs may be reduced primarily through better planning. This would include organizing permanent cruises with scheduled departures, economically justified reefer container quantities and the ensuing cheaper rent cost, as well as consolidation of cargoes, consisting not only of fish products, for shipment in both directions.
It is also important to expand the existing capacities and conduct dredging operations in the port of Murmansk while also negotiating better terms with the railways for refrigerated container shipping in this area thus significantly reducing the transportation costs. Manufacture of refrigerated containers at Russian manufacturing plants would also be instrumental.
Besides, one of the key points of the Roadmap is to identify a company that would be responsible for overall transport logistics and would be able to offer a favorable end-to-end tariff to shippers.
After receiving the consents of the concerned agencies, the Roadmap for the permanent shipping line of the Northern Sea Route for the transportation of fish products will be submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, according to Kamchatka government, the state-owned Atomflot operating the Russian fleet of icebreakers in the NSR area has announced it is ready to conduct up to four cruises annually as of 2021. The announced fish products shipping rates from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky will range from 14 rubles per kg to the port of St. Petersburg and 17.5 rubles to Moscow.
"SEVMORPUT" particulars
"SEVMORPUT" (Northern Sea Route) atomic lighter and container carrier is a single-screw, single-deck nuclear-powered vessel with an excess freeboard, tank, bow arrangement of the residential superstructure, intermediate arrangement of the engine room and reactor compartment, with an inclined icebreaker-type stem, a cruiser stern cut off in the surface part in the form of a transom.
- Length: 260.3 m
- Width: 32.2 m
- Side height: 18.3 m
- Displacement: 61,000 tons
- Main unit power: 40,000 HP
- Clear water speed: 20 knots
- Lighter capacity: 74
- Container storage capacity: 1336
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