February 1, 2007 the RF Border Control Service has suspended controlling ships making foreign voyages at the berths of several port operators at St. Petersburg.

The reasons cited in the official letter signed by the chief of the St. Petersburg border guard detachment is the inadequate equipment and provision for the border control checkpoints and not finalized documentation for these checkpoints.

The operators that have to stop handling ships in foreign voyages are Fishery Port Ltd., Eco Phoenix Holding JSC, Terminal Service Ltd., Interferrum-Metall JSC, Morgidrostroy JSC, Baltic Ship Mechanic Yard and Severnay Zvezda (operating Berth 5 of Northern Warf).

Most of these companies are engaged in operations with conventional refrigerated cargoes (and account for over 65% of the Big Port's conventional reefer throughput). Eco Phoenix is an oil product operator.

Improving the border control checkpoints provision and preparing and finalizing all the normative documents required may take up at least 6 months. Cargoes in the meantime will divert to other ports, fear the stevedores.

A letter is planned from St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko to FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev (to whom the Border control service is subordinate) to resolve the situation.