The port of Saint Petersburg has announced that it will stop loading vessels with scrap in order to focus on more remunerative products.

An executive of an international trading company said that this will probably change the logistics and volumes of scrap import into Southern Europe, Turkey and North Africa.

He added that "Saint Petersburg has always been an important hub for scrap export, and the consequence of it stopping dealing in scrap is that trading companies will import less. We might be able to ship smaller quantities from other ports, uploading 3,000 to 5,000 tonne capacity vessels but not more than that."

He added that his company will try and find another port in the Black Sea or use railway transport for Russian scrap.

The management of the port said that it is undertaking a number of alterations to workload and working conditions of the employees. The changes are geared towards modernization and optimization of capacity usage.