Construction of a new unloading station for wagons with grain began in Port of Varna-East. The installation will be part of a storage base and system of belt conveyors for direct unloading of grain into the warehouse.

The contactor of the project is the Bulgarian company "Zavodski stroezhi". The firm was rewarded the project after announced competition for assigning of public order. The French company "Broshot" will construct the main part of the equipment of the station. The construction is fully financed by the Port of Varna EAD. The purpose of the investment is optimization of the handling process in the port grain terminal, which is the busiest in the country. Till now exporters carried grain in to the port only with lorries. According to the plan unloading station has to be completed and ready for operation in August, 2003.

A month before the end of the year the Port of Varna handled 5825000 tons of cargoes. This quantity is as much as the turnover for the last year. Forecasts show that until the end of 2002 will be exceeded the figure of 6 millions tons of handled cargoes, that is an absolute record for the last 12 years.

Grain export marks an increase of almost 3 times. As of today 1.11 million tons of grain (wheat, maize, sunflower, barley and rice) have been handled in the port. In comparison, during the 11 months in 2001, 350 000 tons were handled.

Turnover rise is mainly due to increased quantities of grain, containers (+34%), inert materials (+47%), sugar (+30%) and liquid chemicals (+47%). The biggest drop there is in the cargoes related to the production of plants of Devnya town (ore, cement, soda in bags and pallets, liquid fertilizers).

A hurricane with speed of 42 m/s caused considerable damage to Port of Varna on 8 June in the early afternoon. Two cranes on berth No. 8 were overturned; there were damages to the quay and a dozen upset containers. Some offices and computers were smashed and flooded. No employees suffered from the disaster.

Immediately after the storm, port teams began repairing works to eliminate the damages. The most difficult work was to clear up the berth from the two collapsed cranes, one of which had fallen in the water. Operations were accomplished in 3 days by means of a 100T floating crane "Antey" and with the joined efforts of contingency groups of Port of Varna, Port Fleet 99 Ltd. and the naval divers. The collapsed cranes have weight of 150 tons each. Damages are unrecoverable and the cranes will be scrapped.

The final amount of the damages is now being evaluated. It was found that the reason for the extensive damage is the magnitude of the natural disaster. Just before the beginning of the storm, the port received a storm warning. All possible measures were taken to provide safety of both equipment and personnel.