Baltic States – CIS, Energy, Good for Business, Latvia, Oil, Transport

LatRosTrans management said that the company's performance last year was affected mainly by the overall decline in the Baltic transit services market. Latvian ports experienced a decrease in all types of Russian transit cargos, with the exception of coal.

Oil product transit in general also shrank last year, resulting in increased competition for Belarus products among the Latvian and Lithuanian railway companies which had to resort to the dumping policy in an attempt to re-divide the remaining transit flows.

LatRosTrans priorities at the moment are to stop the decline of cargos, to ensure and to prevent thefts from the pipelines.

In the current unstable situation in the regional transport services market, cost-cutting shall be a priority for LatRosTrans along with proper maintenance of the equipment, the management said.

As reported, LatRosTrans last year transported 3.4 million tons of oil products via its pipelines, which is a reduction by 6% compared to 2016.

In 2016, LatRosTrans generated EUR 10.491 million in turnover at a 20% drop from 2015, and its profit shrank nearly threefold to EUR 963,486.

LatRosTrans operates Polotsk-Ventspils and Polotsk-Mazeikiai pipelines leading to the port of Ventspils in north-western Latvia and Mazeikiai oil refinery in Lithuania.

LatRosTrans shareholders are the Latvian holding company Ventspils Nafta (66%) and the Russian oil pipeline operator Transneftprodukt (34%).