Primorsk Oil Terminal
Primorsk Port (also Primorsk Commercial Sea Port) is the largest Russian oil-loading port in the Baltic Sea and the end point of the Baltic Pipeline System. The port is located on the Björkösund mainland of the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea, 5km south-east from the town of Primorsk.
In the 1980s the main part of USSR foreign trade shipments on the Baltic Sea went through the Baltic States. 25% of the total cargo turnover was from the Russian ports: Kaliningrad port, Big port Saint Petersburg, Vyborg port and Vysotsk port. In 1991 USSR collapsed, and Russian Federation appeared on its former territory along other new countries. 4 out of 9 USSR Baltic Ports were now on Russia’s territory, moreover, Kaliningrad port didn’t have a direct overland transport with the mainland. These ports’ capacity was not enough, and Russia had to pay other countries for using their ports and transferring cargoes on their territory (including shipments to Kaliningrad). In order to minimize the dependency on foreign harbors, in 1993 the government made a decision to build three new ports in Leningrad Oblast. One of them would become an alternative to the USSR’s biggest oil-loading port in Ventspils, Latvia.
The construction of Primorsk oil-loading port was initiated in 2000, the first row with two docks started operating in December of 2001. Second and third started operating in 2004 and 2006 respectively, the amount of docks for tankers grew by four times. A terminal for transferring light petroleum products was opened.
