Fesco довезет зерно до Азии

 Fesco plans to develop grain handling at the Commercial Port of Vladivostok (CPV), which the company owns. A representative of the company told Vedomosti that the first shipment of 2,500 tons was sent through the port to Japan at the end of last year. He did not disclose the name of the cargo shipper. A source with close ties to the port told Vedomosti that in the future, as much as a million tons of grain could be handled there each year. But it is not clear how much grain Fesco expects to reload there this year. The company representative did not divulge that.

 

Containers are currently the primary cargo that passes through CPV. Nearly 350,000 TEUs of containers were handled there in nine months in 2013. As much as 1.5 million tons of general cargo passed through Vladivostok during that nine-month period last year. Fesco did not divulge how much of that consisted of grain. There is no specialized terminal for handling grain in the Russian Far East, so reloading is done using a "railcar-vessel." Fesco had previously planned to build a grain terminal with the Japanese firm Mitsui at the port of Vladivostok, but that project was never brought to fruition. One of Fesco's owners - Summa Group (which owns 32.5%) - together with United Grain Company (UGC, 49.9% of which also belongs to Summa), plans to build a grain terminal in the Russian Far East - in Zarubin (with a capacity of up to 5 million tons per year).

 

Fesco is diversifying its cargo base in order to seek out new sources of income - revenue from the transportation group's rail division and shipping is falling, notes Andrei Rozhkov, an analyst at IFC Metropol. Revenue from the Fesco's rail division decreased by 26% in nine months, to $198 million, and the transportation group's earnings from maritime shipments fell by 61%, to $43 million. An increase was seen only in the cargo-reloading segment (CPV) - by 16%, up to $150 million, and in the logistics division - by 9% to $496 million. Fesco's total revenue for the nine months came to $849 million. Fesco can expect higher proceeds from grain reloading, Rozhkov goes on to say. In Novorossiysk, for example, reloading that type of cargo has a profitability of as much as 80%, in terms of EBITDA, but that figure is not as high in the ports of the Russian Far East - because of the high cost of rail transportation, noted this expert.

 

Vedomosti's sources claim that more grain is being handled at CPV because of an increase in the demand in Japan. Late last year, the Japanese bank Hokkaido suggested that the Russian Ministry of Economic Development create a special economic zone (SEZ) in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky territories to grow grain and other crops. Currently, the bank is creating a pool of investors from Japanese companies and is drafting specific proposals regarding the establishment of a SEZ. The Japanese plan to cultivate grains, soybeans, and buckwheat there. Japanese companies are already growing crops in the Amur region.