According to RIA Novosti, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ordering the country's two largest tanker companies to be reorganized into a single corporation. The objects of the merger are 100% state-owned Sovkomflot in St. Petersburg, the country's largest tanker company by capacity, and Novoship, the second largest, in which the government owns an 87.4% stake, in Novorossiisk on the Black Sea coast. It will take nine months to complete the merger and hold an IPO. The new company will then become the fifth or possibly the third largest tanker operator in the world. Putin recently met Sovkomflot CEO and former Transport Minister Sergei Frank and said this project was largely the idea of the ministry and Frank himself.