MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax-AVN) - The Severnaya Verf shipyard in St. Petersburg set afloat the Svyatoi Apostol Andrei bulk carrier, the first of Project Valdai universal bulk carriers, on Friday.
The vessel was laid down on January 26, 2001 at the order from the Northwestern steamship line. Both Severnaya Verf and the steamship line are included in New Programs and Concepts (NPK) holding company that is led by Director General Boris Kuzyk.
The contract between the shipyard and the steamship line envisages construction of 10 vessels and commissioning of one vessel in three months, NPK Press Secretary Valery Pogrebenkov told Interfax-Military News Agency. If the contract is implemented successfully, five to six more orders a year may be placed with the shipyard. All the vessels of the series will be named after Russian sanits.
Severnaya Verf is building three more vessels of the Valdai project at present. The Svyatoi Knyaz Vladimir was laid down on May 25, 2001, the Svyatitel Alexy on September 10, 2001 and the Svyatoi Georgy Pobedonosets on December 20, 2001.Their construction is progressing as planned. ` Project 01010 Valdai was worked out by the Vympel design bureau in Nizhny Novgorod. It was included in the Sea Registrar of the Russian Navigation in 1999. The Valdai is a one-deck twin- screw vessel with a forecastle and aftercastle, double bottom and double boards, superstructure and machine room in the stern. It has a length of 128.2m, width of 16.74m and depth of 6.1m. Its deadweight is 5,000t in the sea and 3,950t on the river. One vessel is capable of carrying 276 sea containers.
Construction of bulk carriers is a component part of the shipyard restructuring and production diversification program that NPK is implementing, Pogrebenkov said. Under a comprehensive development plan worked out by the holding company's specialists, the shipyard will concentrate on military shipbuilding, implementation of export orders, civil shipbuilding, repairs and modernization.