Port of Varna - Overview

Overview

There are two anchorages at Varna roadstead: summer and winter. If violent northeasterly wind and wave conditions make the anchorages hazardous, a foul weather anchorage is available west of the 70 m (230 ft) high Cape Kaliakra 26 nautical miles (48 km) east-northeast of Varna.

Two inland canals connect the sea and Port of Varna East with Lake Varna, Lake Beloslav and Port of Varna West: Channel 1 with draft 11.5 m and Channel 2 with draft 11.0 m. The canals form an island, on which a deepwater oil terminal, among other port facilities, is currently located. The depths of the ship berths and the approaches allow the handling of vessels of capacity up to 50,000 gross tonnes. In view of the stated safe canal depths, only vessels of draft less than 9.9 m (32½ ft) and airdraft up to 46 m (146 ft) are allowed to Varna West. Vessels with load over 200 m, beam over 26 m, or over 20,000 gross tonnes are required to pass the channels during daylight hours only. The largest vessel handled (as of 2006) is the Norwegian Dream cruise ship (220 m in length, 50,700 gross tonnes).

Port of Varna offers full service: loading, discharging, stevedoring, freight forwarding, storage and various intermodal services. For its approximately 40 berths, it operates 65 electric cranes and about 400 other pieces of ship, landside and warehouse port facilities. The port open-air storage area is 454,000 m2 (4,890,000 ft2) and the warehouses 76,000 m2 (820,000 ft2). It has a well-forked railway and road network. The existing port facilities allow the handling of practically all kinds of solid bulk, break-bulk, containerized and some liquid-bulk cargoes.

Principal exports include urea, soda ash, cement, clinker, silica, fertilisers, grain, containers and ro-ro. Principal imports are coal, metals, ores and ore concentrates, oil, phosphates, timber, molasses, containers and ro-ro.

Since 2006, Port of Varna serves as a hub for BP and German wind turbine manufacturer Saga.

In 2008, the port posted a 57% growth in overall tonnage handled, and at times in late summer it was stretched beyond capacity, due to redirected cargo from striking ports in the region and the year's record export of wheat from northeastern Bulgaria.