Maksim Akimov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, set a task to begin dredging in the Gulf of Ob not later than 1 August 2019. The instructions were given during the meeting of the project committee for transport part of the comprehensive plan for upgrading and expanding core infrastructure till 2024, says press center of RF Government.
The 2019 budget retrenchment ensured a required level of financing for dredging works at the Utrenny terminal in Sabetta port – RUB 3.84 billion. The state expert approval of the dredging project was obtained only in May thus postponing the issue of required regulatory acts on allocation of budget investments. A sole contractor for those works has been defined by RF Government’s order, fleet mobilization has begun (eight ships will come to Sabetta within a fortnight). However, the draft order of the Government has been revised and resubmitted to ad-hoc executive authorities for approval.
Maksim Akimov reprimanded the responsible and reminded about the short construction season in the Gulf of Ob limited by about 10 weeks. In his opinion, time-consuming bureaucracy should not cause the disruption of works. He called for an immediate submission of an approved document so that the dredging works could be started no later than on August 1.
Aleksandr Krutikov, Deputy Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, added in his turn, that the construction of Utrenny terminal in Sabetta is a principal condition for implementation of NOVATEK’s Arctic LNG 2 project which is to ensure 50 million tonnes of cargo for the Northern Sea Route by 2024. The terminal construction needs almost RUB 100 billion of additional budget resources for 2020, 2021 and 2022. Such an instruction was given by RF President in February 2019 while Rosatom included additional needs into the budget request for the draft federal budget.
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