Yalova-based Besiktas Shipyard launched today, November 29, 2011 the 7,100DWT Mugan, the fifth serial product tanker of Project RST22M for Palmali Group, the Marine Engineering Bureau said Tuesday.
The 7,100DWT vessel was named Mugan. Palmali Group placed an order for 10 tankers of Armada series of Project RST22M with Besiktas Shipyard and in late May implemented an option for 5 more vessels.
The Turkish shipbuilder plans to perform the order by the end of 2013. Two tankers of the series have been put into service.
The Project RST22M product tankers are successors of Project 005RST01, or "Armada" first series. The Armada serial ships were designed by Marine Engineering Bureau for Palmali Group and built at the shipyards of Selah and ADA in Tuzla (Turkey) in 2002 -2006. The Project RST22m is an updated version of the 2nd series tankers (Project RST22), which were built at Nizhny Novgorod-based Krasnoye Sormovo in 2008-2009.
Ten tankers of the first Armada and five tankers of the New Armada have been engaged in 'river-sea' transportation of crude oil, fuel oil, diesel fuel and other petroleum products and vegetable oils. The vessels also carry the commodities on the shipping lanes in the Caspian, Black, Mediterranean, Baltic and North Seas, including the routes around Europe and in the Irish Sea.
The new series tankers satisfy the Volga-Don Canal and the Volga-Baltic dimensions.
RST22M project vessel main features: length overall - 139.95 m, breadth - 16.6 m, depth - 6,0 m.
Palmali Group is a shipping company operating in the Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Seas. Last year, shipments of oil cargo on Russia’s inland waterways by the Group’s fleet exceeded 4,5m tons. Palmali Group is a major carrier of oil companies SOCAR (Azerbaijan) and LUKOIL (Russia) on the southern lines. The Group has been awarded long-term contracts for transportation of petroleum products with TNK-BP.
The Group operates a fleet of more than 100 vessels, including sea-going tankers of up to 180,000dwt, sea-going and river tankers of up to 8,000dwt tons flying Russian and foreign flags.
Besiktas Shipyard was founded in 2007 and is part of Besiktas Group, comprising shipping and shipbuilding assets. Besiktas Shipyard has the 235 m long, 40 m wide panamax size dry dock and 230 m long, 37 m wide panamax size floating dock dedicated to ship repairs and conversions.