Keel laid for PAO Sovcomflot’s new PSV

Finnish Arctic vessel constructor, Arctech Helsinki Shipyards Oy held a keel laying ceremony December 17 for a new icebreaking platform supply vessel ordered by Russia’s Sovcomflot under a long-term agreement with Sakhalin Energy.

Under an agreement signed with Sakhalin Energy in April 2014, Sovcomflot will operate one multifunctional icebreaking platform supply vessel (ice class Ice-15) and three ice-class platform supply vessels for 20 years under the Sakhalin-2 Project.

The company said the vessels were designed for year-round delivery of personnel, supplies and consumables to oil and gas production platforms in the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye fields located in the Okhotsk Sea.

Vyborg Shipyards (VS), where hull structures of the supply and support vessels are built, will act as subcontractor under the shipbuilding contract signed with Arctech Shipyards.

Speaking at the keel laying ceremony, Evgeny Ambrosov, Senior Executive Vice President of PAO Sovcomflot, said: “The vessel currently under construction is an addition to a series of completed and successfully operating icebreaking supply vessels, modified in line with specific characteristics of the Sakhalin-2 project. We are proud to have earned the confidence of Sakhalin Energy, a company with which we have worked successfully on the Sakhalin-2 project for more than ten years.”

According to Sovcomflot, the new 104-meter icebreaking supply vessel will have a deadweight of 3.000 tonnes and will be capable of reaching a speed of 16 knots.

The Sakhalin-2 Project is an oil and gas development offshore Russia managed and operated by Sakhalin Energy Investment Company which is a consortium between Shell 27.5% (minus one share), Gazprom 50% (plus one share), Mitsui 12.5% and Mitsubishi 10%.

The project includes the development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye oil field and the Lunskoye natural gas field offshore Sakhalin Island in the Okhotsk Sea.

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