ARKHANGELSK, Northern Russia, March 27 (AVN) - The state-owned Sevmashpredpriyatie machine- building enterprise, which builds nuclear submarines for the Russian Navy, will receive a huge order for reconstruction of a drilling platform in several months, a source in the Arkhangelsk region administration told the Military News Agency.
According to unofficial data, the value of the contract is USD300m. As soon as the contract is signed, the project's investor, Norway's Northern Oil union, will move the drilling platform from the Alaska shelf to the Barents Sea, under agreement with the Murmansk-based Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka enterprise.
The platform will be used for drilling three boreholes there and then be repaired at Sevmashpredpriyatie, which is the prime contractor of the project. Research equipment and oil tanks will be mounted on the platform.
It is expected that the Norwegian party will visit Arkhangelsk for specification of the contract in the near future. They will also discuss the perspective project of building an ice-class tanker, which will ferry oil from the platform.