Volga-Caspian dredging comes at a price

摘要

Russia's ports agency Rosmorport could triple canal dues at the Caspian ports of Astrakhan and Olya to finance dredging of a key stretch of Russia's inland waterway system. The agency wants to dredge the Volga-Caspian Canal, which connects both ports to the Caspian Sea, a source at a shipping firms says. Rosmorport says the proposed tariff hike is not as large as the losses shipowners face from oper- ational limitations caused by the silting up of the canal, a position that most shipowners agree with.