Kalistani Major History

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Kalistani Mainland Export Infrastructure to get major Update
Focus is on Port Swedes and National Rail Infrastructure
Port Swedes Vrassa
February 19, 4903


Port Swedes to build permanent Steel Shipping Port, to increase capacity in Northern Port

The Major Northern Port, Port Swedes, near the Jah Delta separating Kalistan and Lodamun, is due for a major upgrade, the first in a thousand Years. To date, Port Swedes has served primarily as a Refeuling/Repair Station for the Kalistani Regular Navy and is a major naval station, but it is also the primary internal transport link from the Mainland to Kaliburg on Ananto. Now that Kalistan has dramatically increased its exports of steel, a significant upgrade in the port facilities will be required to handle the shipping.

"We have estimated that to meet Hutori demands in port at Elga," said Trade Minister Michelle Martinez, "we would need to load two steel coils a minute onto Hutori Ships. While this can be easily accomplished at Elga, provided the container shipping is there to load the coils onto, we also feel that an expansion of Port Swedes here can dramatically lighten the burdens on Elga. And we will need to increase export capacity anyway, to serve Dolgavan demands too, given their recent agreement to purchase 18 million tonnes of steel from us this year. This expansion wil shorten the transit between the Republic and its Northern Trade Partners, as well as increase efficiency at Elga."

The expansion, which is expected to last into November of this year, will cost the Republic about 2.1 Billion Rubles, and will include increased onsite storage, finally a firm segregation between commercial shipping ports and military docks, improved refueling facilities, and space for an additional 16 modern container ships. "The more ships we can load at a time, the faster we can get our orders processed, and the quicker we can get them on their way," said Martinez. "Additionally, we will greatly decrease the potential for accidents on the job, by allowing our workers to take a little bit more time to ensure that the job is done safely and correctly each time."

Along with the expansion of Port Swedes' facilities, rail capacity between Sulari and Port Swedes is now slated to double, to facilitate a higher rate of cross country traffic. "We already have bridge crews out in the right of way building river crossings and so forth. The original line is double tracked, and this new line will also be double tracked and will travel directly adjacently for the most part, but will circumvent cities entirely rather than following the original line into the populated areas. In this way, we can treat the new line as express cargo/freight, and this will resolve the occasional hangups we have with passenger traffic on the original line." Additionally, since there will be no new road crossings, once the train leaves either Sulari or Port Swedes, it is intended to travel at maximum safe speed the entire time. This should cut transit time along the route by several hours, allowing the Republic to run twelve fully loaded trains a day between the two ports. This will be the equivalent of three cargo ships worth of steel a day.

With the Steel industry booming, and contracts beginning to be filled at Sulari, Futures are beginning to inch up again, and the Republic is considering suspending Direct Sales. "We don't want to even get close to the point where we can't meet our contracts," said Martinez. "We still got a little bit of a cushion, but with one or two more major purchases, that cushion will be gone and we will once more need to consider ramping up production... It is a balancing act, but the Republic is still very conservative minded about projections for sales, and so we will want to make sure that we do not put the pedal down when we should be letting up on it."

In other news, Kalistan will soon begin consideration of a bill to begin accepting limited amounts of Hutori currency as legal tender. "The finance minister and the Bank are looking at accepting individual deposits of Hutori Liras, and what it will mean for the Republic's currency." The plans are just in their nacent phases, and the Trade minister had no further comment on any plans along these lines.