Russia: President Putin Held Meeting with Sovcomflot CEO

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin held, August 6, a working meeting with Sergey Frank, Sovcomflot President and CEO. Sergei Frank took the opportunity to brief Vladimir Putin on Sovcomflot’s projects, as well as on the company’s investment activities.

Among the issues discussed during the meeting were – implementation of the company’s development strategy, SCF’s projects on the continental shelf of Russia and abroad, as well as cooperation with major oil companies and Russian shipbuilders.

According to Mr. Sergei, over the past 5 years the company invested RUB 22 bln into national shipbuilding industry.

SERGEI FRANK: “Mr President, over the past five years we have invested 22 billion rubles (approx. $667 million) into Russia’s shipbuilding industry, and we are very satisfied with this work. That is, these are good ships and they operate in the market without any constraints. In coordination with the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and its joint venture partners, we have invested a similar sum in projects related to technology transfer to Russia. On the whole, we are satisfied with this cooperation too.”

“Undoubtedly, our future priority is to develop civil shipbuilding in the Far East. We are guided in this respect by the USC, which has declared this its priority.”

“We have signed an agreement with Gazprom to develop a fleet of gas tankers with a capacity of 170,000 cubic metres, which will be produced at the Zvezda joint venture in the Primorye Territory. Gazprom offers good opportunities, and our shipbuilders see that they must set up production by the end of 2017-2018. Naturally, they have a lot of work ahead of them. But we will support them with orders, and naturally we will allow them to take advantage of this opportunity.”

VLADIMIR PUTIN: “How would you assess the value of these orders in the short term?”

SERGEI FRANK: “With regard to this series of vessels, we can say that if they go ahead with even half or a significant part of this order, investments will be in the billions of dollars. This is in the light of the fact that each such tanker costs over $200 million.”

Sovcomflot is one of the largest customers of commercial shipbuilding in the Russian Federation and the constant partner of JSC “United Shipbuilding Corporation”. SCF is also Russia’s largest shipping company and one of the world’s leading shipping companies specializing in the maritime hydrocarbons transportation and supporting continental shelf exploration and oil & gas production. The company fleet includes 156 vessels with a combined deadweight of around 12 million tonnes. One third of them have a high ice class.
Sovcomflot, August 8, 2013