In September this year, he commissioned the country’s government and Rosatom to form an “integrated sea transport corridor” for transporting export, import and transit cargoes between the country’s north-western and Pacific ports (from Murmansk to Vladivostok) via the Northern Sea Route (NSR, Russia’s part of Northeast Passage). That is why it is believed that the Kremlin’s latest decision will help facilitate and accelerate the trans-Arctic shipping.

“Our mission is to take over a large portion of the global sea services between the growing Asian economies and the large European market, while offering them the most economically attractive scheme,” said Rosatom’s director general Aleksey Likhachev.

The background to and WorldCargo News’ previous articles on how the state acquired a 92.4% stake in FESCO from its private shareholders can be viewed here. The shares were previously owned by Ziyavudin Magomedov (32.5%), Mikhail Rabinovich (26.5%), Andrey Severilov (23.8%, FESCO’s current board chairman) and Sergey Bazylev (9.6%).

In 2020, Rosatom and FESCO agreed to build up a “strategic partnership”. The following year, they created the Eastern Transport and Logistics Hub for handling containers at FESCO’s Commercial Port of Vladivostok (VMTP).

The project involves construction of two berths with a total length of 750m and depth alongside of 16.5m. The terminal would tranship containers from 10,000 TEU ship to smaller ice-class ship, which will navigate the NEA. Estimated at around US$195M, the plan is due to be completed by 2027.

Rosatom has been the federal developer and operator of the NSR’s infrastructure since 2018. In October this year, it set up International Container Logistics (ICL), its 51%-49% joint venture with DP World. Intended to transport containers along the NSR, ICL is expected to carry around 800,000 TEU a year under its initial stage.

Rosatom is engaging FESCO, Delo and other major Russian transport and logistics groups in the project. Rosatom already owns a 49% stake in Delo, the owner of, inter alia, Russia’s biggest container handler (Global Port Investments), This month, Ekaterina Lyakhova, Rosatom’s business development director and Board member, was appointed Director General of Delo Managing Company, (the group’s holding company). At the same time, Mikhail Kontserev, a long-time Rosatom executive, was appointed President of Delo-owned TransContainer, Russia’s leading rail container operator.

These appointments may not be good news for Sergey Shishkarev, Delo’s Board chairman and principal stockholder. However, he stated that said the group needs to switch over to an entirely new, centralised management model, so it can “fully utilise the unique potential of its transport assets and achieve the maximum synergy.”

In the past few months, FESCO Transportation Group has signed cooperation agreements with a number of Chinese companies, including China Railway Construction Corporation, to help it redevelop three berths at VTMP. The port is expected to handled 850,000 TEU this year, up 11% on 2022, according to managing director Nikolay Yermolayev.

China’s Hebei Port Group will help FESCO to upgrade VMTP’s infrastructure and launch new container services. MoUs has been signed with Jiangsu International Freight Train and Shandong Port Overseas Development Group. FESCO will also cooperate with Shanghai Suoke Supply Chain Management to transport containerised agri-products from Russia to Shanghai and other Chinese cities. Other agreements have been signed with Guangzhou International Inland Port Management Committee and Ningbo Land-Union International Logistics.