SEOUL, January 20./ITAR-TASS/. In the South Korean city of Jinhae at a shipyard of STX Offshore and Shipbuilding was held a ceremony naming a new tanker - The Velikiy (Great) Novgorod - for transportation of liquefied natural gas /LNG/, Russia’s Consul General in Busan Andrew Osmakov told Itar-Tass on Monday.
Russia’s Sovkomflot had ordered the tanker for works under a long-term agreement with Gazprom Global LNG.
The official ceremony featured Sovkomflot’s Director General Sergei Frank, Gasprom’s Deputy CEO and head of Gazprom Export Alexander Medvedev and first deputy head of the administration of the city of Velikiy Novgorod Anton Zemlyak. Gazprom Export’s Deputy CEO Elena Burmistrova broke against the new vessel’s board a traditional bottle of champagne.
“The Velikiy Novgorod will become a flagship of Gazprom’s fleet, it will be the biggest, mightiest and most effective vessel,” Alexander Medvedev said adding in several months’ time Gazprom would received another vessel of the kind, which was also built by the same South Korean company.
Gazprom Marketing and Trade will freight the gas carrier to transport LNG. It will be the first gas carrier from a Russian company and the biggest LNG tanker in Gazprom’s fleet.
The Velikiy Novgorod LNG carrier’s capacity is 170,200 cubic metres. The vessel has a diesel-electric engine, which may consume three kinds of fuel. The winter equipment and the Ice2 certification mean the vessel will transport the cargo in ice, including along the Northern Sea Route during navigation in open water. The vessel has been classified in compliance with the Russian Sea Register and the Lloyd’s Register.
“Tankers of the Velikiy Novgorod class are most modern, technological and energy efficient vessels in the world. They can transport gas the year round practically from all existing LNG terminals in the world, including Russia’s first LNG terminal Sakhalin-2 at the port of Prigodnoye and from the future Vladivostok-LNG terminal,” Sergei Frank said.
The gas carrier’s crew will feature only Russian citizens, including those trained at St. Petersburg’s Sea and River Fleet University.
The new gas carrier is called the Velikiy Novgorod in honour of Russia’s one of most ancient cities, which from the moment of its foundation in the IX century has been playing a most important role in establishment and development of the Russian state. In 1992, it was put on the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage.
Gazprom Marketing and Trade is Gazprom’s 100-percent subsidiary registered in the United Kingdom. Gazprom is the world’s biggest gas producing company, which owns 18 percent of the global deposits of the natural gas and about 70 percent of the Russian gas deposits.