The contract winner of the Russian Defense Ministry’s online public auction for the delivery of three ice-class ARC4 supply ships is the Severnaya Verf.

The auction was organized by the Federal Agency for Military Procurements (“Rosoboronpostavka”) and the results of the auction were announced on June 8, 2012.

The draft state contract will be submitted to the company on June 13, 2012.

If the contract is concluded, Severnaya Verf will begin processing the metal for the first supply ship in December this year. The shipyard will deliver the first ship to its owner in November 2014, the second – in November 2015 and the third – in November 2016.

“Severnaya Verf won the auction largely due to already existing experience of building supply ships intended for offshore drilling platforms for European customers. From a technical point of view, the vessels purchased by the Ministry of Defense are very similar to the ones made for European clients and the project 22390/22391, which should provide a basis for the development of the Gazprom’s auxiliary fleet, envisaged for exploration of the Arctic shelf, “Leonid Kuzmin, Marketing Director of Severnaya Verf stated.

In recent years, Severnaya Verf has built on a “turnkey” basis and exported two offshore drilling platform replenishment ships.

“Due to our export related experience we are the only shipyard in Russia with well- proven technologies, special tooling, as well as extensive business contacts with suppliers of marine equipment. This will allow our company to successfully execute a new order from the MoD,” Leonid Kuzmin emphasized.

According to the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation, Severnaya Verf is currently the sole supplier of Project 20380/20385 corvettes as well as Project 22350 frigates for the Russian Navy.

Based on the existing contracts, Severnaya Verf is contracted by the Russian Navy for construction and delivery of 6 Project 22350 frigates, six Project 20380/ 20385 corvettes as well as a communication ship under the Project 18280, which are to be completed by 2020.