MOSCOW, December 26 (AVN) - Russian Transport Minister Sergei Frank will travel to St. Petersburg on January 26, 2001, to see the Severnaya Verf shipyard laying the keel of the first Valdai-type bulk carrier, ministry spokesman Valentin Pushchin said on Tuesday.
The shipyard is planning to build 10 bulk carriers of the river-sea class for the North-western steamship line, Pushchin told the Military News Agency.
In summer this year, the Severnaya Verf management signed an agreement with the Vympel design bureau, based in Nizhny Novgorod, under which the bureau undertook to draft documents on the Valdai project. The vessels' machinery will be made by the Nevsky shipyard, also in St. Petersburg. Its production is expected to take two years.
Each bulk carrier will have a displacement of 5,000 tonnes. They will be manufactured on an order from the Severo-Zapadny Flot JSO, a division of the North-western Steampship Line holding. Severnaya Verf will supervise the works.
According to data obtained by the Agency, the Russian Savings Bank has started financing the Valdai project. It will lend a total of USD49m to be paid back by 2008.