Rosmorport at ‘Hydraulic Engineering Facilities and Dredging’

FSUE Rosmorport took part in the international congress “Hydraulic Engineering Facilities and Dredging”, held last week in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.

The congress was organized by the PortNews Information and Analytical Agency. FSUE Rosmorport was the general partner of the congress.

Denis Viznarovsky, the head of the FSUE Rosmorport’s Capital Construction and Repair Department, introduced a report on promising projects of his organization on the creation of hydraulic engineering facilities, dredging plans and operations, and their implementation.

In 2020, the capacity of Russia’s seaports increased by more than 32 million tons due to the commissioning of new port facilities.

Today, FSUE Rosmorport is implementing large projects (at various stages), aimed at creation of a modern maritime infrastructure; port complex in Gelendzhik, maritime terminal in Pionersky, transshipment LNG complex in Bechevinskaya Bay, etc.

At the same time, the company systematically faces difficulties in pricing procedures for dredging works within the framework of the projects.

Nowadays there is a situation in the marine dredging market in Russia when the time costs included in the current prices for dredging do not correspond to the actual resource costs of dredgers and do not take into account the actual conditions for dredging, according to Viznarovsky.

Besides, the current estimate base does not include a number of necessary norms and rates related to the modern foreign dredging fleet.

In general, this leads to the establishment of an estimated cost inadequate for the market, and – as a result – to disruption of competitive procedures.

This year, FSUE Rosmorport will begin work on updating the current estimated standards and unit rates for dredging and clarifying the cost of operating of floating equipment.

During the congress, Viznarovsky put the spotlight on some very important issues related to the environmental management of dredging operations.

In accordance with the current legislation, the average period for development of design documentation justifying dredging and obtaining permissions is 1.5 years. Of this term, approximately 8 months are spent on approval of the project and obtaining permission for implementation of underwater dumping.

Dredgers also face a ban on work during spawning and migration of aquatic biological resources in the area of work, without taking into account the actual presence of the species in the water area of the seaport.

Another problem is the discrepancy between the cost of events aimed at compensation for damage to aquatic bioresources and caused damage de facto: according to the current damage assessment method, even when damage is caused to low-value and weedy types of aquatic bioresources, it is compensated in line with the valuable and most valuable types.

In this regard, the enterprise continues to work with the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery in terms of amending the methodology.

Over the past year, FSUE Rosmorport provided navigation parameters for water areas and approach channels at 49 facilities in 22 seaports of Russia, performing dredging in the amount of 7.8 million cubic meters.

More and more new dredging vessels are being included in the fleet of the enterprise.

As a result, the share of dredging performed by own equipment is steadily increasing.

From 2014 to 2020, this indicator increased from 52% to 90%, which led to a significant reduction in the cost of attracting contracting organizations.

Almost the entire volume of works during this year is planned to be carried out with the use of its own equipment (about 8 million cubic meters).

At the event, Vladimir Vinogradov also revealed more info about renewing the dredging fleet.

He said that, for example, since 2016 the dredging fleet of the enterprise has been expanded with 25 new vessels with a total value of more than 9.5 billion rubles (over $130 million).

The fleet of the enterprise is being expanded at its own expense, without funds from the Federal Budget.