Russian Port-Projects in the Baltic Sea: A Brief Analysis of Russian Ports and Projected Ports in the Baltic Sea Fringe

Abstract

With its present borders, Russia faces severe limitations in port capacity in relation to the demand of the domestic industry and raw material producers. The Baltic states possess, on the other hand, a port capacity that vastly exceeds local demand and continues to attract large volumes of Russian transit cargo. In this paper, existing Russian ports on the Baltic Sea are described along with a number of proposed port projects in the Gulf of Finland. Future large scale development of new Russian port capacity has long been considered unlikely, but political changes and rising oil prices have much increased the likelihood of one, or several, of these projects being realised. Probably, however, these projects are still not feasible from an economic point of view, and Russia will have to largely depend upon the port-sector of the Baltic states.