According to General Director at Northern Shipyard Andrey Fomichev, the Russian government has decided that the carriers should be built at Russians shipyards, although it could be done cheaper at foreign plants,Baltinfo.ru reports.
If the Northern Shipyard gets the order to build Gazprom’s LNG-carriers, the shipyard will be modernized, possibly with a new department for manufacturing of gas tankers.
According to Fomichev, the same procedure was followed at the Baltic Shipyard - when the yard received the order to build the world’s firstfloating nuclear power plant, production was radically modernized.
Although the gas carriers will be built at a Russian shipyard, most of the parts and materials for the vessels will have to be imported from abroad. There are practically no Russian manufacturers of parts necessary for building gas tankers, or hardly any other vessels – everything from pipes to paint has to be imported, said Fomichev.
The situation is changing as more and more domestic enterprises gradually adjust production to be able to deliver to large projects within development of oil and gas fields. Russian share in supplies to production of offshore vessels has lately increased from 40 to 50 percent.
- We have suppliers who have begun to sell equipment that holds international standards, thus taking over niches that formerly were held by foreign manufacturers, Fomichev said and added that the Northern Shipyard in such cases prefer to conclude contracts with the Russian manufacturers.