Bronka, St. Petersburg’s deepwater port that enters service in September, is becoming a member of Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM). Handling containers, RoRo, break-bulk and project cargoes in the Port of Hamburg’s second most important market, as a new Baltic port Bronka will discharge an important function in seaborne foreign trade.
With the entry into service of the first stage of construction, St. Petersburg’s new outlying port will already offer a container terminal with annual handling capacity of 1.45 million TEU plus a RoRo terminal for 260,000 units. The first stage of construction permits ships to be handled along quays extending for 1,430 metres. Costs of the new port total around 1.17 billion euros. Fenix as a private investor has committed around 820 million euros. Dmitry Mikhaltschenko, Managing Director of the Baltic port of Bronka, visited the ‘Gateway Hamburg’ stand at the transport logistic trade fair in Munich. In the presence of HHM joint managing directors Ingo Egloff und Axel Mattern as well as Natalia Kapkajewa, HHM’s representative in St. Petersburg, and Marina Rimpo, its Head of Market Development for the Baltic Region, he signed an application for membership. Mikhaltschenko also conducted numerous discussions with shipping and logistics companies during his visit to the trade fair. “The Port of Bronka has excellent development prospects. Situated at the gates of St. Petersburg, it is very easily accessible by sea and very well linked with its Russian hinterland. Hamburg is today already of great significance for Russia’s seaborne foreign trade and closely connected with the Baltic region via the Kiel Canal. Membership of Port of Hamburg Marketing opens up superb opportunities for us to build up contacts with shipping, transport and logistics companies as well as importing and exporting firms in trade and industry. We look forward to our cooperation and joint events with Port of Hamburg Marketing. Initially we shall concentrate on rapidly making the deepwater port of Bronka with its extensive range of cargo handling and logistic capacities widely known internationally. HHM will be supporting us in that,” explained Dmitry Mikhalschenko. “We are delighted that with the Port of Bronka, we have been able to gain a new Baltic seaport as a member. Against the background of Russia’s significance for the Port of Hamburg’s seaborne foreign trade, we see points in common for marketing activities. Both sides will profit there from targeted networking at events and trade fair showcasing in important markets that are significant for both port and logistics centres,” emphasized Natalia Kapkajewa. “With Bronka, the outlying port of St. Petersburg, where the first construction stage is due to enter service on schedule in September, we are creating an extremely modern and high-performance multi-purpose cargo handling centre. Bronka will be making a major contribution towards relieving the at times very heavily utilized Russian port centres, and will ideally complement the obsolescent municipal Port of St. Petersburg. Our project is backed by the Governor of St. Petersburg. With Bronka as the gateway for supply and logistics activities for the economy, we are setting the scene for high-performance port infrastructure in the St. Petersburg region and also generating new jobs,” said Dmitry Mikhaltschenko. “I also see the Port of Bronka’s membership of Port of Hamburg Marketing as a clear sign of the expansion of good relations between Russian ports and Hamburg. For many years the port and city partnership has linked us with St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is also the location of our port representative office in Russia that is successfully headed by Natalia Kapkajewa,” added Ingo Egloff. The Port of Hamburg reported total throughput of 12.5 million tons in seaborne cargo traffic with Russian ports in 2014. In the same year, altogether 662,000 standard containers (TEU) were handled between Hamburg and ports in Russia. Even today, 14 feedership companies offer 20 liner services for container transport between Hamburg and the Russian ports of St. Petersburg, Ust-Luga, Kronstadt, Kaliningrad und Archangel. On the export side, it is mainly food and beverages, chemical products, machinery and equipment, as well as metals and metal products, which are shipped via Hamburg to Russia. On the import side, coking plant and oil products, coal, crude oil and natural gas, along with chemical products that dominate throughput from Russia in Germany’s largest universal port.