OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2012. Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port Group (“NCSP Group” or the “Group”) (LSE: NCSP, MICEX-RTS: NMTP) announces its consolidated operating results for January – August 2012.

NCSP Group’s total cargo turnover for the first eight months of 2012 increased 4.1% compared to the same period last year and amounted to 107.8 million tonnes.

NCSP Group CEO Rado Antolovic said: “We are pleased to see that the Group’s turnover continues to grow at a decent pace year-on-year despite some slowdowns in cargo-handling in July and August as a result of the flooding that hit the Krasnodar region in July. We managed to quickly restore our normal course of business and have largely mitigated the losses.”

The Group’s liquid cargo turnover during the first eight months of 2012 increased by 2.3 million tonnes or by 2.7% year-on-year (y-o-y).

Crude oil handling in January-August 2012 totalled 76.0 million tonnes, which represents an increase of 2.1% y-o-y. This growth is attributable to an increase in volumes at the Sheskharis Oil Terminal of the Novorossiysk Port (up 1 million tonnes or 3.5% vs. 8M 2011).

NCSP Group’s oil products handling volumes grew by 3.8% y-o-y, reaching 12.3 million tonnes. This growth was mostly driven by increased diesel and fuel oil handling at the Primorsk Trade Port (up 246 thousand tonnes y-o-y).

The Group significantly increased grain handling volumes month-on-month in August 2012 compared to July 2012 (744 thousand tonnes and 414 thousand tonnes, respectively). As a result, total grain throughput in January-August 2012 amounted 5.4 million tonnes (an increase of 185.4% y-o-y).

NCSP Group’s diversified port operations enabled it to quickly adapt to changing demand and the Company successfully switched its facilities from declining mineral fertilisers and iron ore to growing cement and ferrous metals cargo.

Thus, in January-August 2012 the Group increased ferrous metals handling by 20.7% y-o-y to 5.9 million tonnes and cement handling more than tripled compared to the first eight months of 2011, reaching 190 thousand tonnes.

The container segment saw modest growth, increasing 3.3% compared to the same period last year.