National Container Company, Russia’s largest container stevedore, said traffic growth stalled in 2011, reflecting the disruption of Balitic Sea shipping caused by severe weather and the sale of a terminal stake.

    The flat growth in 2011 contrasted with a 13 percent year-over-year increase in 2010. Traffic in 2011 edged up to a new record of 1.31 million 20-foot equivalent units from 1.3 TEUs in 2010.

    First Container Terminal in St. Petersburg, NCC’s largest facility, boosted volume by 1.2 percent in 2011 from a year earlier to 1.174 million TEUs, pushing close to its annual capacity of 1.25 million TEUs.

    The new Logistika-Terminal in St. Petersburg increased traffic fivefold to 90,896 TEUs. NCC’s Ust-Luga terminal, forty miles west of St. Petersburg, began operations at the end of December with the start of a weekly European feeder service operated by Unifeeder.

    NCC is boosting capacity to keep pace with growing traffic into Russia’s Baltic ports. The Ust-Luga terminal is being developed in three phases with annual capacity scheduled to reach 2.85 million TEUs by 2025. The capacity of the FCT will rise to 1.6 million TEUs by 2015.

    NCC sold its 50 percent stake in the NUTEP terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in February 2011. The terminal handled 125,000 TEUs in 2010.

    NCC handles 60 percent of container traffic in St. Petersburg, Russia’s largest box hub. About half of the nation’s seaborne container traffic passes through St. Petersburg.

(Source:JOC)