«Сумма» причалит в Махачкале

Summa has announced that the structural organization of Summa Group - Port Petrovsk, LLC (which owns 20 hectares of land at the port in Makhachkala) and the FSUE Makhachkala Commercial Seaport (MCS) have signed an agreement of intent. A source with close ties to one of the companies says that according to this agreement, the Summa organization will build new terminals in Makhachkala: one for petroleum products, a terminal to reload general cargo, plus another one for containers. He specified that Summa could invest $300 million in the development of the port in Makhachkala.

 

The Makhachkala port is the only deep-water port on the Caspian Sea. It handled six million tons of cargo in 2012 (5,300,000 tons of which consisted of oil) and has a traffic capacity of nine million tons per year. By 2015 the port in Makhachkala plans to increase its output to 15 million tons (including ten million tons of oil and petroleum products). It is not clear how much cargo Summa is anticipating. According to Khuchbar Khuchbarov, the general director of Port Petrovsk (as cited by Summa's press office), a master plan for the port's development will be created in conjunction with MCS, as agreed with the leadership of the republic and the Ministry of Transportation. "After upgrading the port, and taking into account the potential for oil production on the Caspian Sea shelf, we will be able to compete with other ports, including the one in Baku. There is also potential for growth in the reloading of transit cargo - including general, container, and bulk - given the cargo tonnage passing between Russia, Georgia, Turkmenistan, and Iran, as well as the materials needed for the construction of the Avar-Kakheti highway. Currently this cargo is not passing through the port because its infrastructure is not developed," explains Khuchbarov.

 

Nor does Summa rule out the possibility it might take part in the privatization of MCS, noted Vedomosti's source (a company representative declined to comment.) The Ministry of Transportation has announced that the government can sell the state's share in the port between 2014 and 2016. But first the port needs to be reincorporated as a joint-stock company. It is not known when that will happen.

 

In an interview with Vedomosti, Summa's president, Alexander Vinokurov, stated,"We believe that Dagestan is a promising region for investment, with greatly underutilized economic potential. We see enormous opportunities in regard to developing the republic's infrastructure and investing in agriculture, especially in the cultivation of rice and grains."