Azerbaijan’s Baku International Sea Trade Port has announced the start of construction of a fertilizer terminal at its new facility in Alat on the Caspian Sea. The terminal is being jointly financed by the government of Azerbaijan and the Port of Baku, and is expected to be commissioned by the end of 2022, according to a Port of Baku press release.
The investment decision follows the completion of a feasibility study that showed “a significant potential” for transshipment of fertilizers from landlocked Central Asian countries to western markets via Azerbaijan.
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan have production capacity for various fertilizers, including urea, sulfur, and potassium carbonate that exceeds 6.6 million mt annually, according to the release.
All three countries have invested heavily in the construction of fertilizer production facilities to increase potential export volumes. The release highlighted Turkmenistan’s Garabogaz Fertilizer Plant, located on the Caspian Sea and inaugurated in Sept. 2018, can alone produce 1.2 million mt/y of urea, of which more than 90 percent is for export (GM Sept. 21, 2018).
According to the Port of Baku Director-General Taleh Ziyadov, the volume from Central Asia – primarily Turkmenistan – fertilizers transshiped via the port of Baku has increased more than 13-fold between 2018 and 2020, from 48,339 mt to 630,000 mt.
And the trend is accelerating, he said, with the port handling more than 450,000 mt of fertilizers in the first five months of 2021.
A new terminal will ensure reliability in Central Asia’s fertilizer supply chain and allow us to increase volume from Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, said Ziyadov.
The new fertilizer terminal will have capacity to handle 2.5 million mt/y. The project plans include two warehouses with a total capacity of 60,000 mt, as well as state-of-the-art conveyor systems to unload various types of fertilizers directly to warehouses or into wagons/rail hoppers at a newly-designed wagon loading station.
The port authority plans to lease the terminal operation through a long-term concession and is currently in negotiations with potential bidders.