The Vyborg Shipyard, located north of St Petersburg, has contracted to build four ST-116XL trawlers for Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet.
According to the yard, the four are among the new generation of fishing vessels for the Russian fleet, equipped with filleting decks,fishmeal and oil production, canning facilities and high efficiency palletising systems that will reduce discharging times for their catches.
Expected to operate in the Barents Sea and other northern areas, the trawlers are expected to have a capacity of 150 tonnes per day and they will be reinforced to Ice Class 3.
Approval procedures for the four vessels were passed last month, clearing the way for the newbuilds to go ahead, and a key factor was the passing of a bill in the summer setting out mechanisms for state support in the form of allocation of investment quotas for the construction of fishing vessels.
The order is one of the first instances of a major Russian operator contracting with a domestic shipyard
‘As a result of effective co-operative work of representatives of USC, VSY and ATF, in the near future Vyborg Shipyard will start work on construction of a new series of vessels,’ said Vyborg Shipyard director general Alexander Solovyev.
‘At present the main activity of the shipyard is construction of highly sophisticated ice-class vessels and icebreakers. Construction of fishing trawlers outfitted with cutting-edge equipment will provide a workload of VSY production capacity for the period 2018 – 2020. In Russia there are only a few shipyards capable to build fishing vessels including Vyborg Shipyard. VSY is one of the leading companies in the Russian Federation in the field of commercial shipbuilding and this newbuilding also confirms this.’
‘We would like to thank Vyborg Shipyard for the fruitful work on finalising and approval of all main provisions of the contract,’ commented Alexey Zaplatin, managing director of Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet.
‘It is well known that construction of fishing vessels at Russian shipyards has been made possible largely due to allocation of so-called investment quotas. Unfortunately, the statutory documents governing the conditions and volumes of investment quota allocations for new vessels built at Russian shipyards have not yet been adopted. However, we strongly believe that the regulatory background will be set up by the end of this year and volumes of investment quotas allocated for our vessels will be sufficient for their profitable operation.’
