GREAT TRANSHIPMENT

The construction of the Baku - Tbilisi - Kars (BTK) railway is on the home stretch: by the end of this year, the first test train will be launched on the steel highway. The facilities of the International Sea Trade Port in Alat will be phased into operation in a year and a half. Thus, by early 2015, it will be possible to ensure the full-scale commercial exploitation of the Iron Silk Way trans-regional transport corridor.

The importance of completing the construction of the Baku - Tbilisi - Kars railway as soon as possible, upgrading the communication lines and rolling stock of Azerbaijan Railway, as well as the expeditious commissioning of the Alat International Sea Trade Port was repeatedly emphasized in numerous public statements by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. According to the president, with the commissioning of this infrastructure, there will appear a new, highly cost-effective land route between Europe and Asia. Despite the fact that these projects require large investments, the state is attracting them in order to create a modern and powerful transport infrastructure in the future to fully utilize all the advantages of the geographical location of Azerbaijan at the junction of East and West.

How steel roads are built

"The construction of the Baku - Tbilisi - Kars railway corridor is going on at an accelerated pace: By the end of 2012, work on the entire territory of Georgia will be completed and the border area with Turkey will be rehabilitated. It is expected that at the end of the year, the first train will leave the Marabda station for the border with Turkey," Azerbaijani Deputy Transport Minister Musa Panahov recently said at the 40th session of ministers of the Organization for Cooperation of Railways in Baku.

The construction of the BTK railroad started in mid-2008, but due to a number of reasons, the project participants repeatedly postponed the commissioning of the railroad. In particular, according to Musa Panahov, the most serious problems were associated with the need to bypass an avalanche area on the border with Turkey and turn the track into a 4.5-kilometre foothill tunnel. Another obstacle was the complete unsuitability of the 160-kilometre stretch of the railway from Akhalkalaki to Marabda. As a result, it was decided to abandon the reconstruction, completely rebuilding this site from scratch. With a view to the speedy completion of the BTK, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan provided Georgia with two concessionary loans of $ 775 million in total.

The construction of the Turkish section of BTK was also conducted in very difficult mountain conditions, however, despite all the difficulties, about 80 per cent of road infrastructure has already been laid in the 76-km sector. Turkish partners who fund their own part of the project have already invested 250 million liras in it and plan to increase the investment to 600 million liras. Work on the Turkish section is to be completed during the year. And roughly in the first half of 2013, the BTK transport corridor will be ready for commercial exploitation.

With the commissioning of the BTK corridor, cargo and passenger traffic through the territory of our country will increase several times over, which will increase the load on the railroads and rolling stock of Azerbaijan Railways. Therefore, from the second half of last year, Azerbaijan Railways started large-scale modernization of the railway infrastructure. In particular, we are talking about the 500-kilometre railway line Baku - Boyuk Kasik (the border with Georgia), and especially its 317-km sector. The main objective of the planned modernization is to increase the average speed of westbound freight trains to 100-120 km/h from the current 70-80. It is also planned to take a set of measures to transfer the energy supply system of the road to alternating current, update the alarm and communication systems, reconstruct a number of depots, as well as to purchase more than 420 new tanks, trucks and passenger cars.

Marine horizons

In parallel, the construction of the new international sea port in Alat has been accelerated. The ceremony of laying the foundation of the Yeni Baki port was held in November 2010. Excavation and construction work has been carried out here since then. Thus, the Dutch company Van Oord BV has finished dredging the entrance channel and the shunting area of the marine part of the port by about 60 per cent. After this work, a navigating channel at a length of 7 km, a width of 160 m and a depth of 7.6 m or more will be laid. And in the coastal area of the port, the construction of a railway and road, and excavations were carried out mainly through the efforts of Azarkorpu. "In the coming days, the Ministry of Transport will name the company that won the tender, and the selected contractor will begin to provide services for the construction of infrastructure, and supply and installation of equipment at the new port," Musa Panahov said.

The construction of the Yeni Baki port is carried out in three stages and is financed mainly from public funds with the subsequent involvement of private investors. In the first phase scheduled for completion in the next year and a half, the transshipment potential of the Alat port will be 10 million tonnes and 40 thousand containers. In the second phase, its capacity will be increased to 17 million tonnes and 150 thousand containers, and in the third stage - to 25 million tonnes of cargo per year and about 1 million containers.

The Azerbaijani Transport Ministry estimates the investment in the construction of the new Yeni Baki port at 870 million manats. It is noteworthy that, according to preliminary estimates made about four years ago, the construction of the new port was supposed to cost approximately $ 400-500 million. Like in the case of BTK, the rise in the price of the port project is due to the rise in global prices for construction materials and contractors' services. In addition, over the past few years, requirements for the structure of the new port have been revised, and its project indicators in terms of cargo handling have significantly increased.

Once fully operational, the Alat port will operate 14 terminals, including ferry, cargo and container terminals. Moreover, the port will be designed to receive ships with a capacity of up to 13.5 million tonnes (in the future, dredging work will make it possible to receive vessels with a greater draught), including container ships, ferries, "ro-ro" ships and universal dry cargo ships. Thus, by the end of 2015, the infrastructure of the new port will annually handle up to 17-20 million tonnes of cargo, which is several times larger than the current operating port of the capital.

The construction of the largest regional logistics centre, designed to promote the development of multimodal transportation by the Europe - Caucasus - Asia corridor (TRACECA), will begin at the port. About two years ago, this initiative was supported by the European Commission. A German consulting company was also involved in developing the first draft of the logistics centre, and as a model for study, modern logistics centres of Hamburg, Bremen, Leipzig, etc. were selected. Since then, the Transport Ministry has prepared a feasibility study for a logistics centre, and tender procedures will be carried out soon to select a construction contractor.

Of the 400 hectares allocated for the Yeni Baki port, about a quarter will be given to the logistics centre. In the first stage, the area of the centre will be 50 hectares, warehouses of 800 thousand square metres and sites for servicing 100 thousand standard containers will be created. According to preliminary estimates, the first stage of this project will cost 30 million euros.

The logistics centre is meant to promote multi-modal, primarily container traffic between the ports of the Caspian Sea within the TRACECA transport corridor. In the longer term, it is planned to establish a special economic zone (SEZ) with industrial, financial and service components near the new port.

With the launch of the BTK corridor, up to one million passengers and 6.5 million tonnes of cargo a year will be transported in the initial stage alone. Subsequently, the traffic volume will increase to 17 million tonnes of containerized, bulked and other types of cargo from Asia to Europe. As the Yeni Baki port works at full capacity in the future, it will be possible to process about 25 million tonnes of cargo and 1 million containers annually here. The implementation of these projects will result in the creation of the Iron Silk Way transport corridor that connects the key land routes from Europe to Asia in the territory of Azerbaijan.