Representatives of state-owned organisations discussed the plans for dredging works during the annual VIII Congress Hydraulic Structures and Dredging.
Russia experiences a shortage of deep-water marine terminals and port infrastructure along the Northern Sea Route, while maintaining shipping depths on sea channels in ports and on inland waterways remains a priority for the use of the Route. These tasks are designed to be carried out by the federal projects Development of the Supporting Network of Inland Waterways and Development of the Supporting Network of Seaports, for which about 60 billion rubles ($650 million) are allocated from the federal budget in the period 2025–2027.
Infrastructure projects include capital (for new projects) and repair (for existing ones to maintain design depths) dredging works. The costs of dredging works often make up the lion's share of the total cost of port projects.
The state is responsible for dredging works in the waters of seaports and on the approaches to them. For example, the state-owned company Rosmorport handles dredging along the Northern Sea Route, while the Hydrographic Enterprise and basin administrations of inland waterways, subordinate to Rosmorrechflot, manage inland waterways.
Rosmorport will carry out repair dredging of 13.1 million cubic metres in 2025, including 7.3 million cubic metres to be extracted from the Volga-Caspian Sea Shipping Canal. Additionally, another 4.6 million cubic metres of soil are planned to be extracted as part of investment projects at the terminals of the Baltic and Southern Sea basins.
In 2024, the volume of dredging performed by Rosmorport amounted to 14 million cubic metres, including 11 million cubic metres to maintain the navigation parameters of existing hydraulic structures and 3 million cubic metres for projects to create new underwater hydraulic structures in Ust-Luga and Novorossiysk. At the same time, 56% of the work was performed using the company's own equipment.
Last year, repair dredging was carried out at the Volga-Caspian Sea Shipping Canal, the main shipping canal in the port of Arkhangelsk, the Kaliningrad Sea Canal, the Azov-Don Canal, the Taganrog Approach Canal, and others.
The volume of capital dredging works for current projects implemented by the Hydrographic Enterprise Federal State Unitary Enterprise is 4.4 million cubic metres, and for projects in the preparation stage, it is 28.6 million cubic metres.
The prospective volume of repair dredging on the Northern Sea Route until 2030 is estimated at 34.4 million cubic metres. Specifically, in 2025–2030, it is planned to carry out dredging in the port of Sabetta (4.8 million cubic metres), at the Utrenny terminal (5.4 million cubic metres), on the sea channel of the port of Sabetta (19 million cubic metres), at the coal terminal for the Syradasayskoye field and the oil terminal Port Bukhta Sever (1.6 million cubic metres in total), at the sea terminal on Cape Nagleynyn in the port of Pevek (1.2 million cubic metres), in the seaport of Tiksi (400,000 cubic metres), and in Tambey (2.1 million cubic metres).
The volume of dredging for these projects in 2025 is estimated at 2.5 million cubic metres, with plans for further growth. These volumes are approximate and subject to revision.
As in other segments, Russia is in dire need of updating its dredging fleet. According to Natalia Oshyker, Deputy Director of the Civil Shipbuilding Sales and Contracting Department of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), 91% of dredgers in Russia are over 25 years old, of which 60% are between 26 and 40 years old, and almost 31% are over 40 years old. At the same time, there are 62 dredgers, 54 multi-bucket dredgers, and 20 grab dredgers in Russia.
We see the development of competencies in the construction of a dredging fleet as one of the most important tasks. Of course, dredging vessels remain among the most technologically intensive and complex.
—Natalia Oshyker, Deputy Director of the Civil Shipbuilding Sales and Contracting Department, USC
There is a significant discrepancy in determining the country’s need for a dredging fleet and plans for their construction. Denis Kuznetsov, Technical Director of JSC Southern Center of Shipbuilding and Ship Repair (part of USC), noted:
We analysed the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s long-term plan for ship construction until 2035 and, to our surprise, found only six dredgers, which, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, are needed by our Russian market. In fact, the demand is certainly higher.
The Russian market’s demand for dredgers is much higher, with estimates pointing to a need for at least 16 such vessels. According to the Hydrographic Enterprise, the need for additional dredging vessels in 2025 alone for the development and maintenance of Russian seaport infrastructure in the Northern Sea Route waters stands at eight units.
Private companies and their associations could help solve the existing problems of the dredging industry. To overcome these challenges, it is necessary to reduce dependence on foreign fleets, synchronise the plans of private businesses and the state, lobby for the interests of the industry at the level of federal executive bodies (e.g., pricing, amendments to regulatory legal acts), and participate in the formation of state policy in the field of the dredging services market.
More specifically, it is necessary to amend current regulatory legal acts to categorise soils according to the difficulty of their development and unloading, prioritise and synchronise dredging projects, and implement EPC contracts (under which the contractor performs engineering, ensures the supply of materials and equipment, and carries out the necessary work).
These tasks could be taken on by an association of dredging companies, which has yet to be created in Russia.
Source: Portnews
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