New Russian Tanker Company To Develop Arctic

ENERGY TECH

Russia Could Claim Million Square Kilometers Of Arctic
Murmansk, Russia (RIA Novosti) Jun 26 - Russia can claim an additional 1.2 million square kilometers (0.46 million square miles) outside its economic zone in the Arctic, an area with expected hydrocarbon reserves of about 10 billion tons of fuel equivalent, the director of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences said Monday. "I am talking about Russia being able to claim territory outside its economic zone," Valery Kaminsky said. He said a just completed expedition to the Arctic Ocean was undertaken in line with a state order from the Natural Resources Ministry and the Federal Agency for the Management of Mineral Resources in order to obtain additional materials to establish the border of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic. Kaminsky told journalists onboard the Rossiya nuclear-powered icebreaker that although materials obtained during his scientific expedition would require a year to be thoroughly studied and processed, it was already certain that Russia could claim additional territory in the Arctic. "All these complex results will give us new data and strengthen Russia's position with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)," he said. "All these strengthen Russia's economic, political and international positions in the Arctic." Kaminsky said the expedition to the Arctic Ocean, which ended Monday, took 43 days.

by Maxim Krans
Moscow (RIA Novosti) Jun 26, 2007
On June 20, 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.

Frank proposed the merger seven years ago and continued to lobby for the project after resigning as transport minister and while he worked as an aide to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. In 2004, he was appointed Sovkomflot director general and started working on the merger project.

At that time, Frank said that the trend towards consolidation, already apparent on the global shipping market, would become more pronounced in the event of a future recession. Although the market remains upbeat and no recession is in sight, the companies had no choice but to merge because they would otherwise have had trouble staying afloat and vying with their rivals on this difficult market.

The Russian shipping industry is not alone in consolidating. In 1999, Denmark's A.P. Moller Maersk Group took over Sealand Corporation, an American shipping company, to establish Maersk Sealand, the largest container company in the world.

Both Sovkomflot and Novoship were privatized in the early 1990s and started operating the most advanced vessels of that period. Both companies eventually established Russia's largest cargo fleets for transporting fuel and energy.

Although Russian vessels are on average almost 25 years old, the two companies operate vessels that were commissioned 5.5 and nine years ago, respectively. Sovkomflot and Novoship each own 56 vessels, mostly tankers, and their consolidated fleet will displace over 8 million metric tons. These figures will make the new company a strong rival to the global leaders.

Production will soon begin at hydrocarbon deposits on the Russian Arctic shelf and will lead to tougher competition among tanker companies. The new Russian tanker giant will mostly operate in the Arctic, because oil and gas production in that region is expected to total 17% and 21%, respectively, of nationwide output by 2020.

The Russian Industry and Energy Ministry said 55 offshore oil and gas platforms, 85 specialized transport vessels and 140 auxiliary ships would have to be built in the next 20 years in order to develop Arctic deposits. It would be imprudent to allow foreign companies to operate on this lucrative market. Therefore, as a first step, Sovkomflot and Novoship have each ordered about 20 new tankers and gas carriers displacing almost 2 million metric tons of deadweight.

In early June, both companies submitted a joint design for Arctic shuttle tankers intended to transport oil from the Prirazlomnoye deposit in the Barents Sea. The keel of the first shuttle tanker was laid a week later in an impressive setting at St. Petersburg's Admiralty Shipyard, one of the old Russian shipbuilding companies. It thus appears that Russia can minimize foreign involvement in developing its hydrocarbon deposits on the Arctic shelf.

Energy giant Gazprom, which owns the Shtokman gas condensate deposit in the Barents Sea and other similar projects; Sevmash, Russia's largest shipyard, in Severodvinsk, northern Russia, which makes nuclear-powered submarines, oil and gas platforms and tankers; the Murmansk shipping company, which operates a unique ice-breaker fleet and has its own terminals in Arctic ports; and pipeline monopoly Transneft, now building an oil pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific coast and contemplating another one along the Barents Sea coast, will jointly develop the Arctic deposits.

Frank said the Sovkomflot-Novoship merger would make it possible to more effectively support ambitious projects on the Russian continental shelf involving both liquefied natural gas and pipeline development.

President Putin has set a number of objectives for Russian ship-owners in the last few months. The new corporation will have to support the national shipbuilding industry and place most of its orders with struggling Russian companies.

Until now, Russian shipyards operated below capacity, because it was cheaper to order ships from foreign companies, which have the most advanced equipment and technologies. Novoship, for one, does not have a single Russian-made vessel.

In May 2007, Putin told a conference in Murmansk that the Russian merchant marine must start flying the national flag once again. Out of the 1,500 ships controlled by Moscow, only 170 fly the Russian flag and therefore pay taxes. Sovkomflot has not registered any large ships in Russia, while only six Novoship vessels are registered domestically.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

Source: RIA Novosti

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS
Solar Energy Solutions
Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ...

Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News

ENERGY TECH

Canadian Oil Sands Development An Economic Boon But Leaves A Mess

Fort Mcmurray (AFP) Canada, June 22, 2007
The development of Canada's oil sands is laying waste to its great northern forest and western plains, say critics who point to skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions, diverted rivers and razed backwoods. And the devastation can only get worse, they say, as energy companies pump billions of dollars into new projects to triple local oil production to some 3.0 million barrels per day within the next decade.

AEROSPACE F-35 Lightning 2 Pushing Ahead On All Fronts EU And US Launch Airline Pollution Initiative easyJet Plans Greener Aircraft By 2015 Airbus Wants To Cut CO2 Emissions By Half By 2020	CAR TECH Billionaire Hopes To Move Entire Plant From Brazil To China US Senate Clinches Fuel Economy Deal Hybrids Or Diesels A Tough Call For Nissan-Renault Debate Heats Up In US Over Coal Fuel For Cars
MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS Boeing Showcases Operational TSAT System During Critical Review Lockheed Martin Shifts Into Production Phase Of Navy Narrowband Tactical Satellite First Wideband Global SATCOM Satellite Packed And Ready For Shipment Major Integration Milestone Achieved On Advanced Military Communications Satellite	MISSILE DEFENSE Raytheon Standard Missile-3 Achieves Ninth Hit-to-Kill Intercept In Space Kinetic Energy Weapons Making Progress In ABM Program Euro-BMD Bad For US Russia And Azerbaijan Confirm Readiness To Host US Anti-Missile System
FARM NEWS Organic Farms Provide A Clue For India's Struggling Farms Wines Knocked Into Carbon Reduction Banned Chinese GM Rice Protein Found In Dutch Shipment To Cyprus Down On The Virtual Farm With GrassGro 3	DISASTER MANAGEMENT US Charitable Giving Sets New Record Topping Katrina Effort New Orleans Still At Risk Of Serious Flooding Water Spray Latest Headache For Indonesian Mudflow Engineers Building House Forms And Shapes For Better Hurricane Endurance
TECH SPACE YES2 Given Green Light For Launch Welcome To The World Of Haptics For Industrial Applications KVH Receives Order For Fiber Optic Gyros For US Military Simulators Boeing Orbital Express Achieves Another First In Space	ROBO SPACE Japanese Humanoid Is Working In The Rain Japanese Robot Receptionists For Hire Japanese Researchers Help Robots Brush Up Communication Skills Guessing Robots Predict Their Environments For Better Navigation

The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement