MOSCOW. Aug 24 (Interfax) - The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) is planning to upgrade its shipbuilding facilities, USC President Alexei Rakhmanov said.
"The main focus is on building dual-purpose shipyards where we could build both civilian vessels and military ships," Rakhmanov said on Rossiya-24 (VGTRK) television channel on Wednesday.
A project at Severnaya Verf shipyard will be used as a basis for upgrading all other USC shipyards, he said. This will enable USC to distribute equipment use and specialist rotation possibilities and optimize the investment program, he said.
The USC is beginning to upgrade Severnaya Verf this month, the USC chief said. "The first preliminary stage ends in September," then the USC will start "to erect the biggest shipbuilding hangar in the European part of the Russian Federation, 75 meters high," Rakhmanov said.
It was reported that the first stage of the Severnaya Verf modernization would involve building slipways with a shipbuilding hangar, crane equipment to assemble hulls up to 250 meters long and weighing maximum 25,000 tonnes, production and auxiliary buildings, energy infrastructure, and completing a western terminal. All work is to be completed by December 2018.
Severnaya Verf's acting general director Igor Ponomaryov said earlier that the whole upgrade project is to be implemented by 2020. Its estimated cost is 26 billion rubles.
Severnaya Verf (MOEX: SZVE) is one of Russia's largest shipbuilding companies, which was previously controlled by United Industrial Corporation (UIC). The UIC assets were pledged to secure loans of the International Industrial Bank, later declared bankrupt. In September 2012 USC paid 12.448 billion rubles for a 75% stake in the shipyard, having consolidated under its control 96.78% of shares in Severnaya Verf.
USC is 100% owned by the federal government. The holding company comprises around 40 design bureaus and specialist scientific-research centers, shipyards and machinery manufacturers.