Фото: пресс-служба Лукашенко
Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the governor of Russia’s Murmansk region, Andrei Chibis, did in fact discuss the construction of a Belarusian port terminal in the region. This took place during the closed part of the meeting, the head of the Russian region said. Earlier, Lukashenka’s press service had not mentioned the port topic in its account of the talks.
According to Chibis, various aspects were discussed in detail, including the potential use of the Northern Sea Route, the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor and the Arctic in general.
“For our country, this is one of the key priorities. The main thing is that there is a huge field for partnership here with our Belarusian colleagues. In detail, thoroughly, we discussed different options for developing cargo logistics both to Belarus and from Belarus via the port of Murmansk, via the Northern Sea Route,” BelTA quoted him as saying.
Chibis described the port construction project as complex. One of the reasons, he said, is the need to take railway capacity into account.
“We discussed this very thoroughly during the closed part of the meeting. We agreed that together with colleagues at the government level we will once again very carefully calculate all possible models,” he said.
According to him, Lukashenka also expressed interest not only in shipping cargo through the future terminal, but also in receiving cargo.
“The possibility of shipping cargo in one direction and receiving it from Asia definitely gives the project a chance to come to life. Although the times are not easy from an investment standpoint. This is our strategic project,” Chibis added.
It should be recalled that in April 2024 an agreement was signed on the construction of a Belarusian terminal in Murmansk. The port’s capacity is expected to be 25–30 million tonnes of cargo per year, with the first shipments expected to pass through it in 2028. A legal entity to oversee the project’s development was also established in April 2024. Since then, there has been little news about the Belarusian port in Murmansk. In November last year, Deputy Governor and Minister for Arctic Development and the Economy of the Murmansk Region Svetlana Panfilova said the project was “at the pre-investment stage of developing design solutions and determining how to provide the terminal with infrastructure.”
It should also be noted that railway capacity is a limiting factor for the use of ports in the Leningrad region as well. Belarusian Railways and Russian Railways are implementing a project to build additional passing loops in order to increase freight delivery capacity across Russian territory. At the Port of Bronka in St Petersburg, which is used by the Belarusian side, there is also a need to expand the capacity of access rail lines.