Privatization of Sovcomflot to finance icebreakers
Parts of the money from a privatization of Russia’s largest shipping company Sovcomflot can be used to build new icebreakers, says Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov.
Sovcomflot will be partly privatized in course of the next three years. 25 percent of the state’s shares in the shipping company will be sold in 2011, while another 25 percent minus one share will be sold in 2012-2013, RIA Novosti reports.
In a meeting in the government in the end of December, Ivanov said that parts of the money from the sale will be used for the building of new nuclear icebreakers.
Prime MInsiter Vladimir Putin has earlier instructed the Ministry of Transport to consider construction of three nuclear icebreakers within 2015. The vessels will probably be built in Murmansk.
The next generation of nuclear icebreakers, named project 22220, will be able to operate both in rivers and in the Arctic Ocean. New technology will make it possible for the vessel to stick from 8,5 to 10,5 meters, said Vorobyov. It will be put into all-year operation in the Barents, Pechora and Kara Seas.
