"Transstroy" barred from building Sochi port

Oleg Deripaska's Corporation "Transstroy" has been deprived of the 2.99-billion-rouble contract on building the second phase of the cargo port in Sochi - one of the main sites of the Olympic construction programme.

The reason of removal was the violation by the Corporation of the antimonopoly legislation and the fact that the Closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC) "Transstroy" Engineering Corporation (a member of Oleg Deripaska's holding called "Bazel") had presented an incomplete package of documents to the construction tender. From now on the Corporation's work will be executed by the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) "The 48th Department of Adjustment Works".

Today, the construction of the cargo district in the mouth of the Mzymta River is carried out by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FSUE) "Rosmorport" and "Bazel" in the form of state-private partnership. The first phase for the capacity of 2 million tons should have been completed in 2009, and this year the port should have started its full scale operation, as the "Kommersant" writes.

The first phase of the port with the capacity of 2 million tons of cargoes should have been commissioned earlier in 2010, but a strong storm in the Imereti Bay in December 2009 strongly damaged the port and suspended the construction.

The broad-scale construction of Olympic objects in Sochi began in summer of 2009. However, the budget of the Sochi Olympiad causes economists' criticism. According to the estimate of the Ministry of Regional Development, the four years of preparation for the Olympiad in Sochi, including this year, will need 1.054 trillion roubles. Experts assert that the figure is highly overestimated.