An investment declaration for building a multirole freight transshipment facility near Murmansk has not yet been submitted to the Federal Agency for Sea and Inland Water Transport, according to agency chief Andrei Tarasenko.

Officials are discussing other possible locations for siting the port, including Russia’s Far East and St. Petersburg.

An agreement stipulating construction of a port that would handle up to 25-30 million metric tons’ worth of Belarusian shipments per year was signed back in April 2024. The project is to be financed by private investors, and the public-private partnership tool will also be used in the future.  

The planned Murmansk transit hub calls for building the required transport infrastructure on the western shore of Kola Bay, including a coal terminal and an oil terminal.  There are also plans to build a railway infrastructure, including the Vykhodnoi – Lavna railway offshoot. The project’s end goal is to establish an all-year-round deep-water freight transshipment hub, part of the North – South international transport corridor.