Russia Opens New Grain Terminal

A newly built Russian grain terminal with an annual capacity up to 2.5 MMT of grain was opened yesterday by Viktor Zubkov, the First Vice Prime Minister, at Tuapse Commercial Sea Port on the Black Sea, according to the official news agency ITAR TASS.

The facility houses a silo complex with a storage capacity of 102,000 MT, and was the result of a 1.82 billion ruble investment, according to reports.

The development, the largest in Russia South region, is part of a plan to increase Russia's export capacity from the existing 23 MMT per year, which is "evidently not enough", said Zubkov.

Russia exported 1.54 MMT of grain in January, up by a huge 52.5% from the same period last year, according to media reports. That brings Russian grain exports for the marketing year to date to 13.1 MMT, fractionally down on the 13.3 MMT exported during the first eight months of 2008/09.

The new terminal at Tuapse might enable the country to beat last year's record grain exports of 20 MMT, officials say.