Russia is planning to build a port on the Caspian Sea in Kalmykia region near the city of Lagan to increase trade in the Caspian region and beyond, Global Construction Review (GCR) magazine reported on Monday.
Plans to build the port have been included in official Russian Federation plans for the region, issued on July 29.
The new Lagan Port will consist of a container terminal and other facilities for storing and loading a range of agricultural products, including a grain elevator with a storage capacity of 300,000 tons. Other terminals will handle vegetables, fruit and cooking oil.
The grain and container terminals will each have a 5 million ton capacity, and the liquid cargo terminal will have a capacity of 500,000 tons.
Altogether, the port will have a transshipment capacity of 12.5 million tons, the magazine wrote. At present, all Russian ports on the Caspian Sea have the capacity of 7.5 million tons.
According to the GCR, Russia is also considering the possibility of building a ship canal between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov, on the north of the Black Sea to provide a shorter route than the existing Volga–Don Canal.
Vitaly Daginov, a general director of the Port of Lagan, said during a press conference in March that the expected cost of the port, together with its road and rail links, was $1.6 billion.
