SSG No 20 - Shipgaz

PORTs & maRiTimE lOGisTiCs
The building of the Baltic Juice Terminal in Ventspils was finished in 2006. The terminal is constructed for unloading
and storage of juice concentrate.
Passenger terminals
being built in Latvia
Last year, Latvian ports loaded 59.5
million tons of goods. At the same
time as the cargo turnover rose in
Ventspils and Riga, Liepaja lost half a million
tons due to the loss of ro-ro cargo.
Latvia
On September 19, when it rained cats and
dogs, passengers arriving in Riga could walk
towards the terminal through a beautiful
new glass corridor. The skyway was finally
ready for use, “only” four and a half years
after opening the Riga–Stockholm passenger
route. And even though the skyway was
attached to the berth in the spring it took
another four and a half months after the
start of the peak of the tourism season of
2007 before the permit to use the skyway
was signed and ready. Nearly half a million
passengers on daily departing ferries could
be an argument for the Riga City Government
to build a walkway from the Old
Town to the port and install signs pointing
to the port. Hopefully, the Riga Passenger
Terminal will continue investments so that
passengers will come to a decent passenger
terminal, provided with all the required
services.
Under roof in Ventspils
The number of passengers in Ventspils is five
times lower than in Riga. However, the construction
of a passenger terminal is in progress
and a glass corridor for boarding ships was in
use already at the end of the summer.
Coal will soon enjoy dry conditions as
well. The Baltic Coal Terminal, which will
have a capacity of five million tons, has
been designed to receive ships with a deadweight
of 120,000 and to load coal under a
roof. At present, the Ventspils Commercial
Port loads coal from wagons to ships outdoors.
Last year, four million tons of coal
was loaded in Ventspils and this year the
figure will presumably be higher.
Last year, Latvian ports loaded 22.5
million tons of oil and oil products, i.e.
38 per cent of the cargo turnover of all
Latvian ports. Since crude oil is not transported
through a pipeline anymore and
oil products were transported to Latvia by
a pipeline only in the amount of 6.7 million
tons, the logistics chain in Ventspils
has been reoriented to reloading oil and oil
products sent by railway and ships.
Last year, the Vitol Group purchased
56 sCandinaVian sHiPPinG GaZETTE • OCTOBER 26, 2007
madli ViTismann