ST. PETERSBURG, May 17 (RIA Novosti) -- Sovcomflot, Russia's leading shipping agent, plans to orient 30% of its fleet in 2008 to transportation in ice conditions, the director general said Wednesday.
Sovcomflot currently has a fleet of 51 vessels and specializes in operating ice class vessels for industrial projects in the Baltic, Far Eastern and Arctic regions, and Sergei Frank said that company intended to become a global leader in ice operations.
"We are positioning ourselves to be the world's number one company in shuttle transportation in arctic and ice navigation by 2008," said Sergei Frank.
"We are deliberately moving in this direction and believe in this market," he said. "The market is in demand in the Russian economy. Thirty percent of our fleet will be oriented to service the Russian energy sector in ice conditions."
Frank said the state-owned company had already prepared orders for ice ships, and added that Sovcomflot would place these orders mostly with St. Petersburg-based Admiralty Shipyards, one of the oldest and largest in Russia.
"Of course, we cannot physically solve all our problems at the Admiralty Shipyards because we have very ambitious plans," he said. "Still, the bulk of the orders will go to the Admiralty."
Sovcomflot, whose fleet has a total deadweight of 3.6 million metric tons (30% of Russia's sea transport tonnage), said it would operate ships to be built for the Prirazlomnoye oilfield in the Barents Sea under the Russian flag.
Earlier on Wednesday, Frank said Sovcomflot would start servicing the Prirazlomnoye oilfield, which has estimated reserves of about 600 million barrels, in 2008.
"Today we are finishing negotiations and hope to sign a contract with the Admiralty Shipyards on building unique tankers for the Prirazlomnoye oilfield," Frank said at an inauguration ceremony of a new tanker, Teatralny Most, built by the Admiralty on the company's order.
He said it would be the largest order in the history of modern shipbuilding.
"We have no doubt that the shipyard specialists will cope with the task, and that we will start transportation on the shelf in 2008," Frank said.
In mid-April, Sovcomflot, Sevmorneftegaz (100% owned by energy giant Gazprom) and the Admiralty signed a trilateral contract to build two reinforced arctic shuttle tankers with deadweight of 70,000 metric tons each for transporting oil from Prirazlomnoye.
The contract was part of an agreement on cooperation between Gazprom, Sovcomflot and Sevmornneftegaz signed in October 2005 on oil transportation from Prirazlomnoye. Simultaneously, the Admiralty and Sovcomflot signed shipbuilding contracts.
