TASS, August 4. /TASS/. The Samus Shipbuilding and Repair Yard (the Tomsk Region) built and launched the first of ten barges for the Yenisei River Shipping Company (Nornickel’s subsidiary), which will deliver cargo to the Arctic regions.
"Today we are launching the first barge, the lead of a series of ten items. <…> These barges will work in Yenisei Bay, and we need them badly," the Yenisei River Shipping Company’s Executive Director Yevgeny Grudinov told reporters, adding while Yenisei Bay is still covered with ice, the barges would work on rivers.
"We are getting ready to receive them, will equip them into the sea class barges for further work," he added.
According to the Yenisei River Shipping Company’s Director General Olga Ksanf, over recent two years the cargo handling with the Norilsk Industrial District has grown significantly due to the implemented investment projects. "Thus, we have been short of the fleet lately," she said. "These ten barges, each of which carries 2,000 tonnes and makes three return voyages within a navigation, would be of great support in our work."
"The plan for this year is two barges, and we do not doubt they will be ready in time," the Samus Shipbuilding and Repair Yard’s Director Nikolay Vdovenko told reporters. "Additionally, the third barge has been built by 75%, and I hope we will send it to the client this year."
The barges are of the river-sea class. They can work in a certain distance from the shore, he added.
Earlier, Nornickel’s press service said the Yenisei River Shipping Company would receive new barges in Dudinka, to where they will be delivered along the Northern Sea Route. The present order for the shipbuilders in the Tomsk Region is the biggest order in recent 20 years. It will keep the industrial facilities practically 100% busy.
The Yenisei River Shipping Company is the biggest cargo transporter along water routes in the Yenisei River basin. The company has the biggest in the region fleet of dry-cargo and tanker vessels.
Norilsk Nickel is a diversified mining and metallurgical company, the world’s largest producer of palladium and high-grade nickel and a major producer of platinum and copper. The company also produces cobalt, rhodium, silver, gold, iridium, ruthenium, selenium, tellurium, sulphur and other products. Norilsk Nickel Group’s production units are located in the Norilsk Industrial District, on the Kola Peninsula and in the Chita Region in Russia.