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By purchasing two modern mobile cranes worth around 10 and a half million euros, the Port of Bar will replace the three transshipment bridges that were demolished on July 2 after hurricane force winds, the director of the port, Ilija Pješčić, told our program "Mirno more". He also says that if the state does not invest significant funds in the port, railway and road infrastructure as soon as possible, the Port of Bar has no chance to compete with the competition on the Adriatic Sea in the long term.
Two days after July 2nd, a storm with winds of over 200 km/h hit the largest Montenegrin commercial port and demolished three transshipment bridges and a grain loading tower.
"The estimate of 35 million was taken due to the acquisition of new, same cranes. However, when we saw that, in addition to a huge amount of money, this would also require planning on the coast itself and positioning the cranes on some new rail systems, we decided to reorient ourselves to mobile port cranes, which are much more efficient when it comes to handling, and also cheaper. For some 10.5 million, which would be the cost of two mobile port cranes equivalent to the ones we have now, we would repaired all the damage", said Ilija Pješčić, director of the Port of Bar.
The damage will be remedied with financial assistance from the state, as well as World Bank funds.
"The government, the well-known working team that has been created, will propose that the budget for 2025 includes covering the costs of acquiring one crane, whether through just providing guarantees for taking a loan, or perhaps through repayment of the entire loan, we will see. And the plan is to procure the second one by subleasing the funds available to us from the World Bank for sustainable and efficient transport through Montenegro," said Pješčić.
ODT Bar hired experts who assess whether someone is responsible for material damage and what the amount is.
"I have information that the expert has completed the expert examination and submitted the report to the ODT. We asked the ODT, as an interested party and because of insurance and everything else, and because of the third parties who were damaged, there are a couple of damaged Monte Cargo wagons and some containers from the freight forwarder, to get a report and they refused us," he said.
An assessment of material damage is awaited, and Pješčić says they have no information about possible liability.
"We provided all the information that the experts asked for, and three months have already passed since then, we don't have any information," said director Luka.
And whether on July 2, 2024, the Port Authority of Bar, which receives weather information from the Institute for Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro, announced possible natural disasters and hurricane-like winds, we asked the director of Port of Bar.
"That day, the announcement was a yellow weather alert, with winds of about 40 km per hour and moderate rainfall, and the Port operates completely regularly in such situations. No one could have imagined that it would come to what it did," he said.
In the first half of the year, the Port of Bar made a profit of around 700 thousand euros, and the transshipment was higher than in the comparative period of 2023. Despite its smaller capacity, it is managing to fulfill all its obligations for the time being, Pješčić points out.
"We are finishing regularly, we don't have any, shall we say, extraordinary losses on that side, everything is fine," he says.
On the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea, the Port of Bar has a lot of competition. Our largest port has long been preceded by the ports of Rijeka, Koper and Ploče. Neighboring Albania is also investing heavily in a new commercial port near Durres.
"Now imagine that next to the port, at least 80 km from here, a port worth a billion euros is emerging," he says.
Montenegro must invest significant funds in port, railway and road infrastructure as soon as possible, otherwise, the Port of Bar has no chance of competing with the competition in its immediate surroundings in the long term, believes Pješčić.
"You have a two-hour drive between Bijelo Polje and Podgorica, where only one train can go due to transformers and restrictions, because someone didn't remember to invest 3-4 million euros for a new transformer, so that two trains could draw stable power, so that they could move. We need investment, significant investment in the railway, we also need investment in the Port. I'm afraid that we have another decade left, if we don't use it wisely, we will have to think about repurposing the port, and that's a real shame because it has enormous potential," said Pješčić.
Ilija Pješčić says that the prerequisite for valorizing all the potentials of the Port of Bar and attracting cargo from surrounding countries, in addition to investing in infrastructure, is to return the former container terminals to state ownership. He is of the opinion that then, in the short term, the unique Port of Bar could increase its annual income four times.
Source: https://rtcg.me/
