First Russian News

Pakistan is unlikely to meet a target for Russian crude to make up two-thirds of its oil imports, despite attractive prices, hampered by a shortage of foreign currency and limitations at its refineries and ports, officials and analysts say.The cash-strapped South Asian nation became Russia's latest customer snapping up discounted crude that has been banned from European markets due to Russia's war on Ukraine. Its first cargo arrived in June and a second is now under negotiation.It is targeting 100…

Russian shipbuilder Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex on Tuesday held a keel laying ceremony for a new Arctic liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier ordered by compatriot shipowner PAO Sovcomflot (SCF Group).The newbuild is the lead vessel in a series of 15 carriers ordered from Zvezda for servicing the Arctic LNG 2 project. She is the first-ever vessel of such dimensions, cargo capacity and icebreaking capabilities to be constructed at a Russian shipyard.The series' lead ship will be owned by SCF…

A U.S. naval destroyer docked on Sudan’s Red Sea coast on Monday in the latest sign of thawing relations with the United States, a day after a visit by a Russian frigate.The visits are a sign of international competition for influence in Sudan, which sits in a volatile region bridging the Horn of Africa, the Gulf, and North Africa, following the 2019 overthrow of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir.Some 300 marines standing at attention aboard the USS Winston S. Churchill were greeted by a Sudanese military band in Port Sudan…

Russia's Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex has started building the first in a series of 15 icebreaking liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers ordered for year-round gas transport along the Northern Sea Route from the Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia's high north. They will be the first such vessels constructed domestically.Shipbuilding, financing, lease and time charter contracts for the new ships were signed by SCF Group, NOVATEK Group, Zvezda and VEB.RF Group in 2019. The lead LNG carrier…

Russian shipping company Sovcomflot and compatriot oil producer Gazprom Neft Marine Bunker have signed an agreement to cooperate on projects for bunkering ships with LNG fuel.The agreement was signed by Igor Tonkovidov, Executive Vice President and CTO/COO of Sovcomflot, and Andrey Vasiliev, CEO of Gazprom Neft Marine Bunker.Sovcomflot said that the agreement reinforces the mutual interest of both parties regarding their cooperation in the bunkering of Sovcomflot’s tankers with LNG fuel.Compared to conventional marine fuels, the use of LNG fuel allows to significantly reduce emissions of sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide…

Russian maritime shipping company specializing in petroleum and LNG shipping Sovcomflot (SCF Group) has just celebrated the tenth anniversary of the start of LNG shipments from the Sakhalin-2 project.In March 2009, SCF’s LNG carrier Grand Aniva loaded the first shipment of Russian LNG produced at the Sakhalin-2 plant. As LNG production at Sakhalin-2 commenced, Russia became a full-fledged member of the club of LNG exporting nations, which at that point included just 15 countries.For a decade two of Sovcomflot’s LNG carriers, Grand Aniva and her sister ship Grand Elena, have been transporting LNG from Sakhalin-2 on a regular basis. Over this period…

President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy's combat capabilities a priority.The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done.Earmarked for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, prompting Kiev to ban the sale of the Ukrainian-made engines needed to propel them.With Moscow unable to quickly build replacement engines for the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, construction stopped.

Large-scale conversion project on offshore platform Molikpaq operated by Sakhalin Energy.While the refit of heavy lift capacity onboard an offshore rig might sound mundane, Liebherr’s project to replace and modernize cranes on the offshore platform Molikpaq operated by Sakhalin Energy, a unit subjected to some of the world’s harshest conditions, is anything but mundane.The modernization project on Sakhalin Energy’s offshore platform off the Russian island of Sakhalin includes two ram luffing offshore cranes, type RL 1500 that are going to be completely renewed.

The first Russian satellite for weather forecasting and monitoring climate and environment in the Arctic region, Arktika-M, is planned to be sent to near-earth orbit in June 2019.Sputnik quoted Russian space industry source saying: "The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle from the Baikonur cosmodrome with Fregat booster and the first hydrometeorological satellite Arktika-M is scheduled for June 2019."According to sources, the equipment installed on Arktika-M satellite will be similar to the geostationary meteorological satellites of the Elektro-L series.Arktika-M will be placed in a highly elliptical orbit, which will allow it to collect meteorological and hydrological information about the state of the Earth's polar regions that are poorly covered by Electro-L…

Yamal LNG has shipped the first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Spanish company Gas Natural Fenosa under a long-term offtake agreement, a press release from PAO Novatek said. The 170 thousand cubic meter Arc7 ice-class LNG carrier “Fedor Litke” unloaded the first cargo in the port of Mugardos in accordance with the lifting and delivery schedule. Annual sales volumes according to the 24-year long-term offtake contract are 2.5 million tons of LNG, which equals to more than 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas. Novatek's Chairman of Management Board Leonid Mikhelson noted: "The first LNG tanker shipped today to  Gas Natural Fenosa…

LNG Gorskaya, a privately-owned Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer, has launched a 340 million euro ($379 million) project to become the first LNG exporter from Russia's European coast, its CEO told Reuters. Russia expects to send LNG to Europe by the end of 2017 from its distant Arctic peninsula of Yamal but a plant on its Baltic coast could establish the country as a more immediate supplier of LNG in a region already dependent on piped Russian gas. The company will build a floating LNG plant off the port of Gorskaya, not far from Saint Petersburg, which will be fed by a 12 km pipeline from Gazprom. The LNG will then be shipped to seven Baltic ports outside Russia using three tankers already on order from Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation.

V.Group has taken its first Russian flagged vessel into full technical management following earlier successful accreditation of the St.Petersburg office from the Russian Register. The ship management services, which will be delivered by V.Ships operations in Limassol and BGI crewing operations in St. Petersburg, are a significant milestone, marking V.Group’s entry into this market. The vessel – UMBA – owned by RPK Nord is permanently stationed in Murmansk and following successful inspection from one oil major that took place immediately after the change of management, she is supporting the oil industry as a storage tanker. Vasilii Reznichenko, Russian Register said: “We are pleased to see V.Ships and BGI expand their services in this part of the world as a ship manager.

Greenpeace International has sent out a ship 'Rainbow Warrior'on Monday to confront the Russian Oil tanker bringing the first oil produced at a new Russian offshore platform in the Arctic Circle to Rotterdam. The oil was drilled at the Prirazlomnaya platform, an offshore rig owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom and the site of Greenpeace's protest last September. The ship sailed from the port of Rotterdam at 12:40 Dutch time (13:40 GMT), told AFP Saliz Patrick, an environmental activist organization on board the ship. The ship is expected to make contact in a day or two with the Russian tanker 'Mikhail Ulyanov', which is heading to Rotterdam.

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, the mood of the Russian delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos was distinctly gloomy, with oil prices near 12-year lows below $30 per barrel and Western sanctions depressing their economy and financial markets. Since then, however, Russian stock and bond markets have risen about 50 percent, boosted by rebounding oil and - more recently - expectations the new U.S. presidency of Donald Trump will ease the sanctions imposed over Moscow's actions in Ukraine. Russian officials and company executives at the forum attended by the world's political and business elites in the Swiss Alps this week were far more bullish, with many predicting the markets rally would continue this year.

On June 21, 2013 under the auspices of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum a number of agreements were signed between Gazprom Marketing & Trading (GM&T), Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS), JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation and ОАО Sovcomflot (SCF) to promote Russian content in LNG carriers construction projects. To ensure LNG shipping by sea from the Gazprom Group projects Vladivostok LNG and Sakhalin-2, provision will be made for possible construction during 2017-2021 of up to 13 highly sophisticated LNG carriers…

Rosneft has proved its leadership in national GTL (gas-to-liquid) technologies development. First pilot batches of Fischer Tropsch synthesis catalysts have been produced at Angarsk catalyst and organic synthesis plant. Today Angarsk plant is the first Russian enterprise capable of producing such catalysts on a commercial scale. The implementation of FT synthesis catalysts production national technologies has been performed as part of Program of the Company’s innovation development by scientists of RN-RDC corporate scientific center, a resident of Skolkovo foundation. The catalysts produced provide natural and oil-dissolved gas to be processed into synthetic hydrocarbons. They were tested in laboratory and have already proved its high performance properties.

Gazprom says it has started producing oil from the Prirazlomnoye field, which is the first Russian project for developing the Arctic shelf and the commencement, they say, of their large-scale activities aimed at creating a large hydrocarbon production center in the region. The Prirazlomnoye oil field [scene of an earlier Greenpeace protest] is located in the Pechora Sea, 60 kilometers off the shore. The recoverable oil reserves amount to 71.96 million tons, projected oil production comes up to some 6 million tons a year (to be reached after 2020).

Gazprom lists amongst its 2013 achievements: the first subsea gas production facility by any Russian company, and secondly, extraction of the first oil from the Russian Arctic Shelf. Russia's first subsea production facility was successfully tested in the Kirinskoye field within the Sakhalin III project. The subsea production facility makes it possible to produce gas with no platforms or other above-water facilities. The Kirinskoye field and other fields within the Sakhalin III…

Transas supples a simulator to the training centre of Arktikmorneftegazrazvedka in Russia. The system has been designed for training of personnel operating cranes offshore on the Arctic shelf. The platform intended for the operation of the cranes is the Prirazlomnaya platform (the first Arctic-class ice-resistant oil platform in the world) to be used as an offshore platform prototype. The crane simulator models control systems, hydraulics and crane interrior arrangement (systems…

Gas production in Russia could pave the way for successful arctic drilling projects after new techniques helped improve efficiency during the region’s harsh winters. The creation of Russia’s first Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant has meant overcoming a number of obstacles similar to those faced within the Arctic region – an increasingly attractive prospect as proven oil and gas reserves decline. The success of the programme – which has seen the use of “big bore wells” cutting operating costs and increasing gas flow – is an example of how viable working in such harsh conditions can be.

Research ship 'Akademik Tryoshnikov' built by Admiralty Shipyards will be employed in the service of Russian Antarctic stations. The Akademik Tryoshnikov is the first research vessel in the last 20 years built by the Admiralty Shipyards to order by Roshydromet. It will be used to resume annual maintenance of the Bellingshausen Station in the Russian Antarctic, and to reopen the Russkaya Station, which was closed in 1989. This station is the only location in the world where researchers can monitor various natural processes occurring across the space of several thousand kilometers.

On 23 November 2016, Sovcomflot and Sberbank signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) paving the way for a new USD 180 million long-term credit agreement with a term of up to 15 years. On behalf of the parties the MOU was signed by Sergey Frank, Chairman and CEO of Sovcomflot, and Herman Gref, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank. The credit facility agreement, the subject of the MOU, will finance two Panamax Arctic shuttle tankers within Sovcomflot’s fleet (Mikhail Ulyanov, Kirill Lavrov), built at the Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg and operated under the Prirazlomnoye project. “The memorandum signed by Sovcomflot and Sberbank is a logical continuation of the successful cooperation between us, both companies being leaders in their respective fields.

SVEZA Ust-Izhora plywood mill recently obtained the GTT (Gaztransport & Technigaz) Approval confirming compliance with specification of containment system for liquefied natural gas carriers. SVEZA Group is a leader in birch plywood production, and it reportedly has become the first Russian domestic producer certified to deliver to LNG-carriers manufacturers. The company's target is to gain at least a 30% share of the market with the estimated annual volume of 60,000 cubic meters of plywood. SVEZA Group has become the fourth company in the world certified by GTT.