NOVOROSSIYSK, RUSSIA — Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP) Group announced on Jan. 27 that grain shipments in 2015 were down 9.7% to 6.7 million tonnes.

Bulk cargo volume for the year totaled 12.5 million tonnes, which included the 6.7 million tonnes of grain. Other cargo included 1.1 million tonnes of chemical cargo, 932,000 tonnes of sugar, 2.2 million tonnes of iron ore and 1.5 million tonnes of coal.

Consolidated cargo turnover for 2015 increased 6.5% or 8.6 million tonnes in the same period as last year to 139.7 million tonnes.

“In 2015 we managed to overcome the negative trend of recent years and achieve 6.5% year-on-year growth, which makes it the best growth rate for the last seven years, and beats the 2009 record by 0.5 percent points,” said Sultan Batov, chief executive officer of PJSC NCSP. “This achievement became possible to a large degree thank to the transshipment equipment modernization program implemented over the last two years. We have intensified cargo operations at all stages and created capacity headroom, while improved client service and commercial department’s efforts helped to attract new volumes. We shall continue to do our best to consolidate this progress.”

General cargo volumes for 2015 increased 2.02 million tonnes, or 17% year-on-year, and reached 13.9 million tonnes.

Container traffic reached 5.1 million tonnes, down 4.9% and 476,000 TEU, down 25.6% compared to 639,700 TEU in the same period of last year.