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Sovcomflot plans to develop civil shipbuilding in Far East

Sovcomflot had signed an agreement with Russia’s gas giant Gazprom to develop a fleet of gas tankers with a capacity of 170,000 cubic meters each
Photo ITAR-TASS/Nikita Kryuchkov
Photo ITAR-TASS/Nikita Kryuchkov

NOVO-OGAREVO, August 6 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian maritime shipping company Sovcomflot has set the priority of developing civil shipbuilding in the Far East, the company’s Director General Sergei Frank briefed President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

“Over the past five years we have invested 22 billion rubles into Russia’s shipbuilding and we are very satisfied with this work. These are good ships, they work on the market without any restrictions,” he said. “We have invested a similar sum into projects in coordination with the United Shipbuilding Corporation and its partners in joint ventures within the framework of technology transfer to Russia. In general, we are satisfied with this cooperation, too.”

“Undoubtedly, our priority is to develop civil shipbuilding in the Far East in the future,” Frank said. “We are guided by the United Shipbuilding Corporation that announces this plan as its priority.”

Frank said Sovcomflot had signed an agreement with Russia’s gas giant Gazprom to develop a fleet of gas tankers with a capacity of 170,000 cubic meters each that would be localized at the Zvezda Shipyard in the Primorsky Territory. “Gazprom provides us with good opportunities, our shipbuilders hope that they should develop this production by the end of 2017-2018,” he said.

“Of course, much work should be done, but we support them with orders and of course, we will give them such an opportunity,” Frank said. “If to speak about this series of vessels we can say that if they can take even a half or a significant part of this order, this will mean billions of investments taking into account the fact that each of such tankers costs over $200 million.”