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The stevedoring companies of the Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg group recorded a 6 percent rise in cargo throughput during the first nine months of 2010 in comparison with the corresponding period in 2009.

The key growth indicator was said to be the increase in export cargo volumes, which saw a rise of 8.5 percent compared with the first nine months of last year.

In particular, volumes of coal were up by 16 percent to 2.7 million tonnes, handling volumes of pig iron increased by 32 percent to 541,000 tonnes and ro-ro export cargoes doubled to 204,000 tonnes.

Volumes of import cargoes declined by 7 percent. Reefer cargoes plummeted 42 percent to 157,000 tonnes and bulk and loose cargoes of ore fell by 18 percent to 405,000 tonnes.

First Stevedoring Company handled 6 percent more cargoes during the first nine months of 2010 at 3.5 million tonnes and Second Stevedoring Company handled over 1.4 million tonnes of cargoes, up 3 percent on the same period last year.

At the car terminal of Third Stevedoring Company, within the first half of 2010 over 7,800 imported cars were handled. No data is available for 2009 as handling operations were not performed at the terminal.

Fourth Stevedoring Company saw its performance indicators decrease by 15 percent to 2.4 million tons of cargoes, which was said to be due to the construction of a first phase container terminal on its land.

The ro-ro terminal of the First Stevedoring Company, launched during the second quarter of 2009, handled 495,000 tonnes of ro-ro cargoes within the first nine months of 2010.

The multipurpose reloading complex in Ust-Luga handled over 1.5 million tonnes of cargoes, almost doubling the volumes handled during the first three quarters of 2009.