Murmansk Commercial Seaport has returned to processing pig iron, a cargo that the company has not worked with since 1996. The export test batch will amount to 65 thousand tons of metallurgical products, the direction of supply is the Mediterranean countries.
The first 187 wagons with cast iron, which arrived from the Ural Federal District, have already been unloaded at the port's berths. A Panamax class bulk carrier with a deadweight of up to 75 thousand tons is expected to arrive for loading the test batch in the third decade of October. Following the results of the pilot operation, the parties will consider the possibility of switching to regular deliveries. The port workshops produced special buckets for the careful movement of ingots for the new cargo, and the gantry cranes and manipulators were retrofitted with petal grapples and electromagnets.
The reorientation of cargo flows is associated with a decrease in the intensity of shipping in the Azov-Black Sea basin and a high load on the Baltic port infrastructure. Under these conditions, the Murmansk transport hub has been accepting additional volumes since September 2026 and providing Russian exporters with an alternative deep-sea and year-round route.
— The government of the Murmansk Region is consistently developing the MTU as a key link in the country's Arctic logistics. The relevance of the Polar port in providing cargo flows from the Urals confirms that the geography of cooperation in the region is expanding and Murmansk is playing an even more prominent role as a link between Russia's industrial centers and global markets," said Svetlana Panfilova, Deputy Governor and Minister of Arctic Development and Economy of the Murmansk Region.
— When traditional destinations operate under restrictions, Murmansk, due to its versatility, provides exporters with direct and year-round access to ocean routes. The technological potential of the infrastructure and the competencies of the staff allow MMTP to ensure regular handling of this cargo, however, the economic stability of the logistics chain largely depends on macroeconomic factors, including the balance of the cost of sea freight and the level of tariff burden on the railway shoulder," said Vladislav Yakovchuk, MMTP Commercial Director.
Grain will be another new type of cargo for the port besides ferrous metals. In October, MMTP is preparing for the start of test transshipment. The test areas complement the existing programs for processing coal, products of mining and processing enterprises of the Murmansk region, including metallurgical raw materials and apatite concentrate, mineral fertilizers and general cargo.
/Ministry of Arctic Development and Economy of the Murmansk Region according to JSC Murmansk Commercial Sea Port/
Photo: MMTP