Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Transport

The Press spokesman of the Estonian Railways Urmas Glase said that as the enterprise is well aware, Russia will fully launch in the second half of this year the Ust-Luga oil port with the planned annual capacity of 10 million tones of oil products.

"Russian transit volumes through Estonia have thus far been approximately 20 million tones per year – hence it might fall by half in the future," said Glase. He noted that perhaps more positive developments would transpire in other categories of goods – such as coal and fertilizers.

Glase emphasized that the Estonian Railways have taken such developments into account in its plants as the launch of the Port of Ust-Luga has been known for quite a long period of time already.

Estonian Railways have proposed to the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Communications to fix the maximum and minimum limits for infrastructure exploitation fees so that the decline in the freight transport volumes would not become too burdensome for carriers. "With this we wish to avoid the situation of a vicious circle developing if the freight volumes should fall," explained Glase.