Page 39 - Журнал Sozvezdye Review - «СОЗВЕЗДИЕ» #39

Company were the only ones in Russia that owned
container ships. It happened so that those contain-
er ships – after the merchant fleet had been divid-
ed among the sixteen Soviet shipping companies
under the USSR Ministry of Marine Fleet – became
the property of the former Soviet republics, the lat-
ter having become independent countries overnight.
The Baltic Shipping Company soon went bankrupt,
and the Far Eastern Shipping Company first lost its
liner traffic and then a significant portion of its fleet.
Discouraging as it was, the situation had its pre-
cursors arising back in the ’80s. At that time, the
USSR faced challenges with its maritime logistics:
The lacking port capacity was causing congestion,
with many foreign vessels queueing to unload or load.
It was at that time that the port capacity started to
receive expansion and the merchant shipping was left
at the mercy of other states. The thinking was that in
pursuit of the financial gain, foreign countries would
continue to carry Russian shipments anyway. Who
would have guessed that thirty years later, they, in
fear of sanctions, would choose to forgo the economic
gain and virtually impose on Russia a logistics block-
ade? But they did, and they did it with great passion.
With little done to ensure maxi-
mum transport security, the Rus-
sian history illustrates one univer- Сегодня крупнейшим в России
sal truth: There can be no security контейнерным перевозчиком
without the marine fleet.
Despite the fact that there are a является компания FESCO
few hundred shipyards and repair fa- (Дальневосточное морское
cilities of different caliber in Russia, пароходство). Она обладает
none of them is currently building
container ships. As to the container флотом из 13 контейнеровозов
ships that fly the Russian flag, these Russia’s largest container
were built by foreign shipyards. This shipping company is FESCO (Far
means that the domestic container-
ship construction competence has Eastern Shipping Company).
been and still is outstanding. With 13 container ships
More or less modern container
ships in FESCO’s ownership were
built in 2005-2009 in China, Ger-
As we hear from the market actors, the global many and Poland. FESCO Ascold, with a capacity of
boycott halts as much as 50% of Russia-bound im- 1,080 TEU, was built by China’s Jiling Shipyard; three
ports and approximately 60% of the Russian exports. FESCO Vitim container ships (1,730 TEU) and FES-
That said, there is very little hope that the situa- CO Diomid (3,100 TEU) in Poland; and three FESCO
tion may improve and that the Russian shippers and Baykal container ships by Germany’s Aker Ostsee.
consignees will find alternatives to the container lines A Morskie Vesti Rossii correspondent filed a re-
that serviced them. The fact is, the six container lines quest with FESCO to find out if the company has
listed above have more than 65% share of the world’s plans to expand its container vessel fleet. We asked
container shipping. Finding a replacement won’t be if new container ships could ever be built by Russian
easy. Moreover, there’s no reason to believe that there shipyards, but our question remained unanswered.
are companies overseas willing to carry Russia-bound Interestingly, the need to have more container
shipments under sanctions pressure. ships built by the domestic shipyards is reiterated pe-
One way out is prompted by the hotly disputed riodically in the official discourse. Alexey Rakhman-
import substitution, i. e. using the Russian carriers ov, United Shipping Corporation CEO, repeatedly re-
with specialized container fleets. No such luck. The ported to President Vladimir Putin on the plans to
handful of container ships available in Russia is few- build a container ship to service Caspian Sea–Hel-
er than a dozen, with tonnage and carrying capac- sinki line. But, specifics have been vague.
ity largely inferior to those of the ships serving the Echoing the importance of domestic container-
world’s largest container lines. ship construction is Sergey Milushkin, Director Gen-
eral at LOTOS Special Economic Zone, who was quot-
What we have today ed last year as saying:
“We are channeling a lot of effort into promot-
Russia’s largest container shipping company is ing North–South transport corridor, which offers
FESCO (Far Eastern Shipping Company). With 13 some potential for shipbuilding. Specifically, given
container ships and 50,000 containers, FESCO’s fleet the acute shortage of new container ships, we have SOZVEZDYE #39
has a total tonnage of 25,000 TEU. To put this into discussed repeatedly the possibility for their con-
perspective, Maersk owns 750 vessels and 4.2 million struction to be assumed by Russian shipyards. Cur-
containers, and its fleet has a total tonnage of about rently in place are the draft engineering designs, with флот
4.1 million TEU. specifications currently under consideration, and in
FESCO alone will obviously not be able to cover case these are approved we may soon see orders for fleet
the needs of the Russian shippers and consignees. But two container ships or even a series further down the
ultimately, there’s no other marine carrier in Russia line. We certainly hope to see LOTOS receive more
offering containerized cargo transportation. Nor are orders.” As far as our journalist managed to find out,
there carriers with commercial containership fleets. things didn’t move beyond words.
In fact, thirty-plus years ago, in the early ’90s, In March 2022, news came out that Vympel De- 37
Far Eastern Shipping Company and Baltic Shipping sign Bureau (member of the United Shipping Corpo-