New Sakhalin hub to handle cargo traffic between Europe and Asia

Sakhalin government’s Transport Ministry is working on an ambitious project to develop Korsakov Port into a big hub to handle international traffic of seafood and other cargoes, reports Megafishnet.com.

According to RZD-partner, the project provides for a large-scale reconstruction and expansion of the sea harbor where a multifunctional deep-sea transshipment complex is to spring up with the hardware for containers, general cargoes and fish products. Class A warehouses, seafood coldstores and a new international passenger terminal are also part of the plan.

The Regional Ministry of Transport expects that the modernized port will be able to receive the first cargo in 2024.

On the one hand, Korsakov will continue to cater for export-import operations. Thus, seafood and agricultural products will be shipped from Sakhalin to Asian countries. "The export of agricultural products has good prospects on the Japanese market, where prices are much higher than at Sakhalin. At the same time, the cost of electricity and natural gas is several times lower here," says Dmitry Lisnevsky, Investment Policy Minister of the Sakhalin Region.

However, it is much more lucrative to link international container traffic between North-Western Europe and East Asia with the Northern Sea Route. Along these lines, Sakhalin authorities want to make Korsakov a turning point for traffic in the direction of the Arctic Corridor.

According to the region's forecasts, in the future the cargo turnover of the Korsakov Port may increase to 30 million metric tons per year with container cargo providing the main volume up to 1.1 million TEU annually.

Work on the Korsakov Project is currently underway in several directions, land consolidation for the site being one of them. Another one aims at getting the plan integrated into the “Russia’s Sea Ports” federal project for the central government’s support.  

At the same time, the Agency of the Far East for Attracting Investment and Supporting Exports (ANO API) is talking with interested Russian and foreign investors.