Petrolesport terminal (PLP), located in the port of St. Petersburg and owned by the leading Russian container terminal operator Global Ports, plans to invest RUR 4.2 bln (USD 75 mln) into the expansion of its container, Ro-Ro and general cargo facilities. Most of the investment (97.2%) will be covered from the company’s own capital, TASS news agency reports.

The expansion project includes construction of two new berths with total length of 365m and three STS cranes, as well as 235,000 sq.m. of storage area and certain engineering infrastructure. This will allow increase the terminal’s current container capacity of 1 mln TEU by additional 400,000 TEU. The project is expected to be completed by 2024.

According to Stanislav Medvedev, Petrolesport CFO, the project’s payback period is 5 years and 8 months, IRR – 14.87%.

However, experts believe that the project will pay back not earlier than in 8 years, as they express doubts about the company’s ability to fill the expanded capacities. As we wrote earlier, in 2016 PLP handled 265 000 TEU, 29.7% less than in 2015. This year the downward trend continues. In January-March 2017 PLP’s throughput fell nearly 11%, from 69 480 TEU in the first quarter of 2016 to 61 920 TEU. Its share among the Russian Baltic container terminals is 11.6%, whereas three years ago it was 20%. PLP might be filled through re-distribution of cargo flows between other terminals of its mother company Global Ports, as pulling volumes from its competitors in St. Petersburg could be difficult and no more cargo can be attracted from the ports of Finland or the Baltic states.