In the mass media of Latvia, right at the ads on apartments, one can already see the information on the sales of port businesses, fish-processing companies or new terminal construction projects. Port capacity and land sales have never been heard of neither in Estonia nor in Lithuania.

Fear of Russians?

Latvian entrepreneurs fear that upon opening new terminals in the port of Ust-Luga, Latvians would lose a large part of transit cargo.

Keeping in mind that the winner is the one who takes action first, Latvian entrepreneurs started selling port terminals.

Currently, the Latvian mass media is full of ads on sales in the Riga port, such as a 129 meter long wharf and its office building with nearly 27 thousand square meters of land.
Judging from the fact that the depth at quays is just 6 meters, the port businesses that are on sale are not considered prestigious. Until recently, the pier has been used for loading lumber.

Selling of future businesses

Most of port facilities that are put on sale or lease are located in Liepaja port in Latvia.
The port has a number of unoccupied territories. Foreign companies are not very eager to invest here. Situated farthest from the industrial centers, this Latvian port can not break through the competition with the ports of Ventspils and Riga. The Russian cargo is almost never transported via the port of Liepaja.

This port is also too weak to withstand the competition of Klaipeda port.

It has been currently announced that the port of Liepaja is selling a promising oil terminal investment project. At the quay of 200 meters long and in the area of 130 thousand square meters, it has been proposed to build an oil terminal. According to preliminary data, the terminal would cost about 16 million euros. It would include an oil mixing and transfusion into cars line, similar to the one situated in Klaipedos Nafta.

The question is: who is going to use this oil terminal? The sellers of the viable oil terminal investment project say that the terminal‘s planned annual capacity would be even 1.56 million tons. In addition to the theoretical oil terminal project, Liepaja is currently selling a fish processing company. The company is said to export its products to Russia and Belarus, it is also said that the company has 4 million euros worth modernization projects approved and supported by the EU. However, no one rushes to buy it: the ads have been “spinning” in the public sphere for more than a year.

Had a great interest

About a year ago, several Russian companies were interested in building an oil terminal in Liepaja.

In theory, there have been attempts to initiate the repairs of the abandoned railway from “Mazeikiu Nafta” to Liepaja. In this case, the terminal construction in Liepaja would acquire quite a different perspective, since the transportation of petroleum products via Liepaja port would be more rewarding.

Several Russian business structures have shown interested in buying “Orlen Lietuva” oil refinery, at the same time considering the investment in oil product loading terminals in Liepaja.

Liepaja port is not yet ready for developing larger projects. It lacks depth. Today, the port‘s deepest point reaches only 10 meters, and after the dredging works it should be 12.5 meters deep. The works are scheduled for completion by 2012. The port dredging will cost over 130 million litas.

Even after having dredged the port to 12.5 meters, it won‘t be suitable for receiving the size of vessels that comes to Klaipeda. Liepaja port has a lot of vacant areas designed for the port activities. However, the depths, which are anticipated by 2012, won‘t be enough to implement the port‘s ambitious plans for the future.