Port of Primorsk

Primorsk Port (also Primorsk Commercial Sea Port) is the largest Russian oil-loading port in the Baltic Sea and the end point of the Baltic Pipeline System. The port is located on the Björkösund mainland of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, 5km south-east from the town of Primorsk.

Construction timeline
In the 1980s the main part of USSR foreign trade shipments on the Baltic Sea went through the Baltic States. 25% of the total cargo turnover was from the Russian ports: Kaliningrad port, Big port Saint Petersburg, Vyborg port and Vysotsk port. In 1991 USSR collapsed, and Russian Federation appeared on its former territory along other new countries. 4 out of 9 USSR Baltic Ports were now on Russia’s territory, moreover, Kaliningrad port didn’t have a direct overland transport with the mainland. These ports’ capacity was not enough, and Russia had to pay other countries for using their ports and transferring cargoes on their territory (including shipments to Kaliningrad). In order to minimize the dependency on foreign harbours, in 1993 the government made a decision to build three new ports in Leningrad Oblast. One of them would become an alternative to the USSR’s biggest oil-loading port in Ventspils, Latvia.

The construction of Primorsk oil-loading port was initiated in 2000, the first row with two docks started operating in December of 2001. Second and third started operating in 2004 and 2006 respectively, the amount of docks for tankers grew by four times. A terminal for transferring light petroleum products was opened.

Port characteristics
Port’s land area is 2,5km², its water area is 32,3km². It is equipped for handling tankers with deadweight up to 150,000 tons, 307m in length, 55m in width and 15,5m submersion; that is vessels coming from the ocean into the Baltic sea, that are close to the maximum submersion. Because of limited button depths in the Danish straits supertankers cannot access the Baltic sea. There are 9 docks in the port, 3 of which are for port vessels; maximum depth is 18.2m at the docks. Tank vessels are handled by six azimuth tugboats: three project 16609 ones that are 2.6MW and 40 tons-force of bollard pull, two project 21110 ones, that are 4MW and 65 tons-force and a project 1233 one that is 3,7MW and 64 tons-force There are 18 storage tanks 5,000 tons each for petroleum on the site, as well as tanks for light petroleum products and a couple for emergency discharge. Total holding capacity of the tanks is 921,000 tons and 240,000 tons for light petroleum products.

Cargo turnover
In millions tons