Extra cost of delays and last-minute terminal changes will be passed on, says shipping line
  
Maersk Line has warned it may introduce a congestion surcharge at the port of St Petersburg and that it can no longer guarantee which terminal cargo will be delivered to.

The Danish shipping giant said that in recent weeks there had been considerable container volume growth at terminals in St Petersburg.

It had also faced delays to container movements out of the terminal because of bad weather and a lack of trucking capacity.

Maersk said: “We are mainly using both Fish Port Terminal and Petrolesport for import and export traffic.”

It would try to inform customers in advance which terminal cargo would be delivered to, but added that waiting times for berths meant it often had to divert a vessel to another terminal at short notice.

The line also asked customers to help speed-up terminal operations by taking delivery from the container yards as early as possible and “please be advised that, due to increased costs and waiting time, we reserve the right to implement a congestion surcharge at short notice”.

Maersk added: “We also reserve the right to implement, on short notice, emergency storage/demurrage charges at transhipment ports and in St Petersburg to minimise delays due to excessive dwell times at the terminals.”

Maersk vowed to continue to invest in additional vessel capacity and terminal space to help improve the situation in the future and advised customers with any questions to contact its local representatives.