On the 19th of November in Moscow XI international «Heavy Russia 2019» conference dedicated to project and oversized cargo logistics has completed its work. This year the conference was attended by a record number of participants – more than 450 delegates form 16 countries of the world.
It has already begun a tradition to start the forum with the discussion of the economic situation in Russia impact on the project logistics market. Simonova Lyudmila, the M.A.Research managing partner, told about the potential of the cargo base for transport market participants. According to her assessment, 2019 was a failure. This is due to a very low rate of investment in fixed assets: in the first half of 2019 the growth was only 0.6%, budget investments decreased by 11.4%. Another negative factor is the delay in the national projects’ implementation. However, 2020, according to the expert, will be quite successful for project logistics in Russia. The points of growth will be the program of modernization of power plants with the new capacities input in 2022-2024. 45 facilities with a total installed capacity of 10.4 GW. Another driver of growth is the construction of nuclear power plants in Turkey, India, Uzbekistan, Hungary, Bangladesh, China and Finland. Forecast on land flow of oversized and heavy cargoes for 2020-2024 – 164 thousand tons, on the sea route – 312 thousand tons. Quite a powerful cargo flow is formed here.
Yarullin Marat, FESCO company project logistics director, continued this topic. In his speech he noted that the Russian market of oversized and heavy cargo transportation is not only growing but has a serious potential for further growth. He said that the target market of project logistics in 2019 is estimated at 430 billion rubles with an increase to 551 billion rubles in 2023. The distribution of investments in the following areas: LNG-projects, oil and gas sector, infrastructure, agriculture, chemical industry, energetics. He particularly noted that Africa can become a new market for Russian companies where domestic investments are increasingly active.
Bryzgunov Igor, RAWI chairman, presented the Russian wind energy market overview to the conference delegates. According to his speech, Russia has the largest potential in this area in the world and it reaches 1 thousand GW. But the country is only at the beginning of the wind resource development, as it joined this process recently: in 2015 the first wind farms began to be built. He noted that every year they will have a competition for the wind farms construction for five years ahead, about 300-350 MW. Approximately the same volumes as now will be built until 2024. If today the WPP components production localization is 44% then from 2020 it will be 90%. If today, we have the blades of one manufacturer then tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will have two and maybe more. Ministry of Trade and Industry defends its position about the localization increase, that means that oversized and heavy cargo volumes will increase for carriers.
After the possibilities of the domestic economy discussing, delegates moved on to the main topic of the 2019 conference – the prospects of project cargoes transportation on the Russian rivers. Ivanov Andrey’s, HC “Logoprom” CEO, report was met with special interest. Under his leadership the company relied on a combination of a powerful Soviet infrastructure and a modern approach to logistics. So, on 933 km of a ship course of the Volga river, in 10 km from Nizhny Novgorod and in 8 km from the Kstovo industrial zone there is a new oversized and heavy cargoes transshipment complex as a part of “Logoprom Kstovo” port. The port was created based on the largest Nizhny Novgorod elevator. Initially the port specialized in the reception, transshipment and storage of general cargoes, metal, any construction and non-metallic building materials. But in the spring of 2019 port became a base for equipment transshipment for Kinetics Technology company, OC Lukoil contractor, needs for construction of oil residues deep processing complex in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod region. In the navigation of 2019 35 units of oversized and heavy cargoes, a maximum weight of more than 500 tons, were unloaded through this port using Ro-Ro and cranes by RTL logistics and transport company.
One more important object for heavy and oversized cargoes transshipment on the Volga river was the heavy cargoes berthing complex of the former “Dzerzhinskkhimmash” plant. It is located at 30 km of the ship course of the Oka river. Unfortunately, this enterprise is no longer there. But the HC “Logoprom” team managed to save, protect from scrap collectors and preserve this unique infrastructure complex, which allows to transship the oversized cargoes weighing up to 640 tons by crane method. The saved complex was named “Logoprom Dzerzhinsk” port. In 2019 port together with the “Barrus Projects” company for the first time in Russia organized the wind turbine gondolas transshipment and delivery by water for the Vestas company.
In his turn, Egorov Gennady, Marine Engineering Bureau CEO, highlighted the role of Russian shipbuilding in the segment of vessels designed for the transportation of oversized and heavy cargoes in his report. According to his assessment, by 2022 the ships built at domestic shipyards will make up 64% of the total number and it will be 100% among new built. He said that almost everything intended for oversized and heavy cargoes transshipment will be built in Russia.
According to him, 64 self-propelled vessels of limited sea and mixed river-sea navigation, specially equipped for transit transportation of large-sized and heavy cargo were built from 2003 to 2019 and 48 more are in order. This new fleet will fully cover all the needs of Russia in the transportation of project cargo by rivers and seas.
According to Egorov Gennady, the main problem of Russian fleet connected with tugs-pushers. River tugs-pushers with 900-1800 kW capacity. Now there are 202 vessels (63% of those built) with an average age of 41.2 years. A total of 322 units were built. 77 ships decommissioned (24%). At the same time 74 vessels were disposed of with an average age of 30.3 years for scrap. Lost in accidents (data clearly incomplete) 3 ships with an average age of 26 years. In sediment – 43 vessels (13%) with an average age of 41.6 years. By 2025, it is expected that 135 old series river tugs-pushers with a capacity of 900-1800 kW will remain in operation, by 2030 – 58 vessels. Given that these vessels are mainly used to work with new barges when entering marine areas, their construction will make sense from 2023-2024.
Drozdov Alexander, P&O Maritime company director, during the conference shared the experience of oversized and heavy cargo water delivery of Tengiz project. As part of the project it is necessary to deliver more than 200 oversized modules weighing about 1.5 thousand tons each. Drozdov Alexander told how the task was initially. These modules should be in the Caspian within three years. The client was ready to pay for this decision. Was looking for a suitable offer. And the decision was to build a special fleet for this project. These 17 ships were built specifically to carry modules for the Tengiz project. According to his words, during 2017-2018 the entire fleet was built and put into operation. Real work on Russian rivers began in 2018. The company worked for two full seasons. All the modules were delivered to Tengiz in time. The main transportation routes – from Korea and Italy, and then transshipment in Finland and Bulgaria, then delivery to the Caspian Sea.
The topic of transshipment of project cargoes in Russian seaports was raised by Russkikh Miroslav, the MSCC “Bronka” head of sales and marketing. As it is known, domestic sea terminals, as a rule, for various reasons, are reluctant to work with oversized and heavy cargoes. Most stevedores consider it impractical to be equipped with expensive berthing loaders of high load capacity due to the unstable volume of project cargoes transshipment. It is gratifying that there are several ports that initially adhere to a different policy. So, currently in Europe there are several Maritime centers of project logistics: these are the ports of Antwerp, Hamburg, Saint-Petersburg and Constanta. Project logistics centers, working with a more diverse range of oversized and heavy cargo, provide customers with a wider range of services. He also noted that MSCC “Bronka” is one of few ports in Russia, which has a program of transshipment of oversized and heavy cargo development. He reminded that on the 16th of October port received the second mobile Liebherr LHM800 crane. Next – commissioning of the new port territory on the artificial land plot №2 where berth №8 had already been built with a reinforced cordon for the most efficient operation of two mobile cranes in tandem, the load capacity of which reaches 500 tons. The commissioning of the new crane should take place just in a few days. All this makes the port the center of project logistics in Saint-Petersburg, where customers are available to various schemes of transshipment to sea, river and land transport, the possibility of technological accumulation and storage of goods.
Mamykin Alexey, head of business development department of oil and gas division in “Barrus Projects” company, continued the topic of oversized and heavy cargoes transportation by water transport. He shared his experience of delivering oversized and heavy cargo on the Zeya river. He told that this year company finished the project connected with oversized and heavy cargoes delivery for Amur GPP project. That was the second phase of the plant construction. “Barrus Projects” transported three batches of oversized and heavy cargo together with Chinese partners. He told thar Chinese side delivered equipment from plans-manufacturers from Tianjin port and provided transport to the final seaport of De-Kastri – the nearest sea transshipment point, which can provide a minimum sea crossing for barges. One of the most critical and dangerous operations under the project was the raid transshipment of large cargoes in De-Kastri from the sea vessel “BBC Mont Blanc” on barges. From De-Kastri cargo moved through the Tatar Strait on the Amur and Zeya rivers to the pier of the Amur GPP. Alexey noted that shallow water of the Zeya river has become a critical limitation for the whole project, the cargo had to be evenly distributed between the barges and used for a quarter of their capacity.
In its turn, “Intertechelectro” group of companies made a report about the experience of transporting gas piston and diesel plants to the places of projects implementation in Yakutia during the “Heavy Russia 2019” conference. In September 2019, the equipment of the diesel power plant was delivered to Beloyarsk. Equipment modules with a total weight of more than 70 tons were shipped from the assembly site of “Kurgan Plant of Integrated Technologies” (LLC KZKT), delivered by road trains to the port of Priobye and then together with low-frame trawls and crane sent by river transport directly to the construction site, while unloading modules was carried out on the unequipped territory. Earlier deliveries of the similar equipment for gas piston power plants in settlements Tazovsky and Krasnoselkup were made. When planning logistics operations for delivery to YaNAO, the peculiarities of the region and the construction sites themselves were considered.
The conference also touched upon the topics of project cargo insurance, the use of Ro-Ro vessels for transportation of oversized and project cargo, the problems of cargo logistics for the nuclear industry and many others.
The conference was sponsored by: FESCO, Barrus Projects, Runa Gold, MSCC “Bronka”, HC “Logoprom”, ISS Global Solutions, STA Logistic, CombiLift and GC MDS.
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