ON THE SAILS OF "SILK WIND"

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took part in the opening ceremony of a ferry terminal in the new Yeni Baki international trade sea port. The potential of the Alat port, as well as of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway corridor will be utilized in the TRACECA transport corridor projects. In particular, the ferry terminal will become the key component of the new regional project for multimodal container transport, the Iron Silk Road.

Next turn

A few years ago the government of Azerbaijan decided to move the ferry and other transport infrastructure of Baku port outside the congested capital and build from scratch the new sea "gates" of the country in the Alat settlement. In November 2010, with the participation of heads of state, a ground-breaking ceremony was held for the port, and work started on the first phase of the project.

And now, after four years, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended the celebration of the opening of the ferry terminal at the new port. The "new sea gates" of the country will allow better use of transit potential of Azerbaijan in the region, and, of course, ensure our transportation safety. Commissioning the Caspian Sea's largest commercial port on the eve of the summit of heads of the Caspian littoral states will serve as a great contribution to our common cause," the president said.

The ferry terminal - the main object of the first phase of the new port - was put into operation. The scale of the work done in a relatively short period of time is very impressive. On the site of the ferry pier the main jetty was built, capable of simultaneously serving two ferries regardless of changes in the water level in the Caspian Sea. To service the ferry terminal two rail ferry piers and dock service were built. At the ferry terminal in an area of 400 hectares the terminal of dry cargo, container area, as well as a number of other infrastructure facilities were constructed. Also ready for use is the classification yard of five railway lines with modern navigation and communication systems, a car road, a tunnel and so on. 

The Dutch company Van Oord carried out the most labour-intensive work to deepen the harbour waters. It built a canal with the length of 7.5 km, a width of 160 m, a depth of 7 m and a turn diameter of 450 m. Such a wide fairway will allow all types of ferries, tankers and bulk carriers operating in the Caspian Sea to safely and freely moor in the harbour.

The construction work on the other parts of the Yeni Baki port is in full swing, and in the second phase in the next year or two the plan is to put into operation the marina and the universal terminal dry cargo and containers, consisting of four berths for Ro-Ro type vessels. The overall length of the dry cargo terminal in the water area will be 650 m. Along with the objects of the first and the second stage construction is under way of the repair base, powerful port cranes are installed, the port administration building and port facilities for passengers, cargo areas and various warehouses - a total of 30 buildings for various purposes. The port area will accommodate border and customs checkpoints equipped with modern equipment items. In the near term, the construction of the largest regional logistics centre designed to service 100,000 standard containers will begin in the port area in order to facilitate the development of multimodal transport between the ports of the Caspian Sea. It should be noted that all stages of this capital-intensive project are estimated at about 870m manats and will be mainly financed by the state funds.

Key component

So what is the cargo capacity of the Alat port in the near future? Initially the new ferry terminal and other facilities of the first stage will be able to handle 10m tonnes of cargo and 50,000 containers per year. "We aim for steady transfer of cargo from centre of Baku to Alat. Therefore, the ferry links will be transferred in staged. Consequently, the activity of the existing terminal in the capital will remain for a certain period," Azerbaijani Deputy Transport Minister Musa Panahov said.

This delay happens to be quite justified, given that the peak in the growth of cargo in the new port will be in the coming years.

As the trans-Caspian shipments increase, the capacity of the terminal will be significantly enhanced: in the second phase the port capacity will reach 17m tonnes of cargo and 150,000 containers, and at the end of the third stage it will increase to 25m tonnes of cargo and 1m containers. By that time, the Yeni Baki port will take the first place in the Caspian region in terms of the cargo capacity. 

Yet, as early as in the next year a marked increase is expected in the use of the ferry terminal: in the second half of 2015 the rail corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars is expected to be launched and the Iron Silk Road project will begin for the railway-ferry transport of multimodal containerized cargo. Strictly speaking, this ambitious undertaking was already introduced in July this year when the pilot container train with 25 cars travelled on the route Baku-Poti. Incidentally, container traffic in that direction began back in 1996, but was subsequently suspended. The operators of the renewed project are the Azerbaijani Railways CJSC and Georgian company Trans Caucasus Terminals LLC, which negotiated tariff and container train schedule.

So far, mainly cars transported the containers and this took three or four days. Now the time for the delivery of containers from Baku to Poti will be reduced to 34 hours. What is more, the velocity of trains in the Western direction will increase from 80 kmph to 100-120 kmph and further cut the transportation time by one quarter when the upgrade of the 317-km long segment of the Baku-Boyuk Kasik is completed. Kazakhstan and China will soon join the route of the Poti-Baku container block train when the ferry terminal in the Yeni Baki port is launched. 

Initially, the Central Asian countries that do not have access to the ocean will provide the bulk of freight for the Iron Silk Road. The Pentagon is interested in the possibility of railway-ferry container cargo from Central Asia to Europe, as it plans to withdraw military equipment and other property from Afghanistan. This route will run from Afghanistan'a Herat via Kushka to Mary (Turkmenistan), and then by rail to the port of Turkmenbashy on the Caspian Sea with the ferry service in Baku and the subsequent railway delivery to Turkey via the Georgian ports or the BTK corridor. According to the calculations of some experts, in the years 2015-2016 this route can handle 2,200 containers on a monthly basis.

According to preliminary calculations, the new route will provide a relatively short and safe alternative to two other options of trade between the East and West, to the transoceanic transport and transhipment via the Trans-Siberian Railway. It has the potential to handle more than 15m tonnes of freight a year. 

In addition to the growth of cargo volumes through the TRACECA corridor, the extra volume of traffic for the Yeni Baki port can be achieved through the formation of a ferry container crossing with the Olya port situated near Astrakhan. The Russian side has already started negotiations with Azerbaijan on the selection of an efficient operator for goods that can work out the long-term logistics for ferry transhipments.

What is more, Iran has expressed readiness to re-launch the shipping lane between Baku and Anzali to improve mutual relations, which had worked for many years, but was suspended in 1998. According to the head of the commercial and industrial free zone in Anzali, Reza Masroor, the restored lane will lead to the expansion of relations between Iran and Azerbaijan in various fields, in particular in the field of tourism and trade. For the same reason Iran will open a new sea voyage to transport passengers along the route, located between the port of Astara in Gilan province and the Baku international sea port. According to the Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan, Mohsen Pak-a'in, the launch of the Qazvin-Resht-Astara railway and opening the Astara (Iran) - Baku - Astara (Iran) line will significantly accelerate the development of trade relations between the two countries. There are plans to deliver cargo from Baku to other ports of Iran - Amirabad and Noushekhr in the future.

In short, the prospects of return on the new port and the initiatives to expand and transfer it outside the Azerbaijani capital already so overloaded with other modes of transport are obvious. Moreover, after the full launch of the entire capacity of the port profit from its activities can be a real source of income for the non-oil sector of the country's budget.

AT FIRST HAND

"The new sea "gates" of the country will allow for fuller use of the transit capacity of Azerbaijan in the region and, of course, will ensure our transport security". 

Ilham ALIYEV, President of Azerbaijan