Blagoveshchensk airport development concessionary agreement signed
On 23 April 2021 a concessionary agreement on the development of Blagoveshchensk Airport was signed in Moscow. The signing ceremony was attended by Governor of the Amur Region Vasily Orlov, CEO Airports of Regions Evgeny Chudnovsky, CEO Novaport Holding Sergey Rudakov as well as Vice President and Deputy Head of Infrastructure Projects & PPP Department at Gazprombank Ivan Potekhin. The document was also signed by Dmitry Luchnikov, acting Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure in the Amur Region, and by general directors of ABS LLC Denis Ryazanov and Pavel Sizyakin.
In March 2021 ABC (Airports of the Big Country), a joint venture between Airports of Regions and Novaport Holding, was named the winner of the tender for reconstruction and management of Blagoveshchensk airport. Gazprombank will be the partner and financial adviser for the project. The investor has undertaken to build a new international passenger terminal with a capacity of at least 600 visitors per hour and associated infrastructure. The new terminal serving domestic and international flights will be equipped with three boarding bridges and a comfortable business lounge. The parking area near the terminal will be expanded to 600 spaces. ABC will also invest in the construction of a new cargo facility with a capacity of at least 6,000 tonnes of cargo handled yearly. ABC will invest ca. RUB 7 billion or more in the development of Blagoveshchensk Airport.
The design of the passenger terminal and related facilities will be carried out this year; after that a general contractor will be selected. Completion of construction on the new passenger terminal and its commissioning is scheduled for the first half of 2025.
Given the large-scale investment projects currently under way in the Amur region (building the Power of Siberia gas-main pipeline and Nizhne-Bureisk HPP, Roscosmos facilities, gas chemical and processing plants) and the fact that this place almost straddles the Chinese border, ABC believes the development of a new modern international airport in Blagoveshchensk will fully meet the needs of the region in transport infrastructure development and to increase the level of transport accessibility and services to locals and guests.
N.N. Muravyov-Amursky International Airport in Blagoveshchensk (Ignatievo) is a hub of federal importance 15 km north-west of Blagoveshchensk, 3.5 km away from the Chinese border, providing air services for cities in the Far East, Siberia and Moscow. In 2019, the airport’s passenger traffic totalled 559,600 flyers.