24 Jan 2011 17:05

Global Ports to grow investments 60% in 2011

ST. PETERSBURG. Jan 24 (Interfax) - Global Ports Investments plc (GPI), which unites the N-Trans group's port assets, plans to invest $90 million this year in port-development, a 60% increase from last year's roughly $57 million, chairman of the GPI board of directors Nikita Mishin told the press on Monday.

The company will focus the spending on developing terminals in St. Petersburg and Russia's Far East, Mishin said. Investment in the maritime container terminal Petrolesport in St. Petersburg could come to 1.35 billion rubles, he said. That money will go to expanding the customs inspection zone, rebuilding refrigeration facilities, and increasing the number of electric hook-ups for refrigeration containers. Investment in Petrolesport totaled 730 million rubles in 2010.

Global Ports plans to acquire stevedore assets this year, Mishin said, without providing specific details. The company is also not excluding the possibility of an IPO sometime in the future if the financial market situation improves, he said. "The market is not good enough right now," he said.

Global Ports was created by the N-Trans group with the consolidation of terminal assets on the Baltic Sea and in the Far East towards the further development of port business. The company includes the maritime container terminals Petrolesport and Moby Dick in St. Petersburg and Eastern Stevedore Company in Nakhodka, two terminals in Finland at the ports of Kotka and Helsinki, and the large independent Baltic-Sea terminal operator Vopak E.O.S. (a joint venture with the Netherlands' Koninkijke Vopak, which has three oil-product terminals at the Estonian port of Muuga). The company is also developing the Yanino logistics park in Leningrad region.