In the year of 2015 the volume of shipments undertaken by the North-Western Shipping Company (NWSC) equaled to 4.8 million tons, which is 14% lower than the corresponding volume last year. The main cause of the reduction is connected with low level of water at the Russian waterways and economic environment in general.
Despite the reduction of operational rates the earnings from freight activities of the shipping company which form 98% of the total receipts increased by 25% to a total of 8 billion Russian rubles.
The positive dynamics of financial indicators was ensured among other factors by switching of the majority of the company’s fleet including 10 ships of the DCV36 “Amethyst” project and 7 ships of the RSD49 “Neva-Leader” project to the shipping of highly rated goods. During the period under review more than 1 million tons of goods were shipped by “Amethyst” type ships, including approximately 0.5 million tons in export handling and 0.45 million tons between foreign ports. The “Neva-Leader” type ships shipped 0.49 million tons including 0.38 million tons for export.
Approximately 70% of revenue for the period under review was acquired thanks to transportation of grain cargo, timber cargo, chemical and mineral fertilizers, ferrous materials and ferrous steel scrap, project cargo and equipment.
The structure of shipping did not undergo any general changes during the year of 2015. The following shipments were made: 1.43 million tons of grain cargo, more than 1 million tons of ferrous materials, 0.78 million tons of chemical and mineral fertilizers, 0.32 million tons of timber cargo, 0.34 million tons of coal, 0.17 million tons of non-ferrous metals, 0.14 million tons of steel scrap, 0.12 million tons of chemical cargo, 0.5 million tons of other types of cargo.
The majority of shipping – 3.4 million tons which equals to 70.2% - were formed by export cargo of the shipping company, its quantity growing by 6.7%. The majority of the exported range of items was formed by grain cargo, ferrous materials and ferrous steel scrap, coal, chemical and mineral fertilizers, timber cargo.
63% (0.8 million tons) of the amount of grain cargo transportation in general was formed by lighterage services (transshipment from NWSC ships to large marine crafts from Russian ports of the Azov Sea in the harbor of port Kavkaz of the Black Sea) which surpassed the corresponding ratio of the year of 2014 by 25%.
The transportation between foreign ports equaling to 1.1 million tons which equals to 23.6% of the overall volume, shrunk by 36% for the most part at the expense of the major types of cargo of that sector – grain, timber cargo, steel scrap and fertilizers.
The volume of import cargo shipping of the shipping company fell by half to 0.27 million tons, which was caused by the reduction of cargo traffic of ferrous materials, construction cargo and chemical cargo from the European countries to Russia. The import ratio in the general volume of traffic equaled to 5.7% for the year of 2015.
In the year of 2015 the volume of internal Russian transportation of the North-Western Shipping Company equaled to 22 thousand tons, including the shipping of equipment on board the “Amethyst” motor vessel along the Northern Sea Route and the shipping of construction cargo from the maritime ports of the North-Western region of Russia to the city of Kaliningrad.