Oil boom creates housing frenzy
Demand for housing in Murmansk is 3-4 times higher than supply.
It is practically impossible to find an apartment to rent in Murmansk. Every possible habitable space is occupied, and the rent has soared in course of the last months, TV21 reports.
The reason for this is the large number of specialists that have arrived to Murmansk to work in the oil and gas sector.
In the end of November the ice-protected platform Prirazlomnaya was towed from Sevmash Shipyard outside Arkhangelsk to Murmansk, where it will be completed at a local shipyard. Rental companies in Murmansk then concluded contracts with involved companies for 6-8 months.
Some 1500 people have come to Murmansk to work at Prirazlomnaya, which is planned to be finished by the end of 2011. The rush of people was expected, but somehow the town was not ready for them anyway. To the rental companies’ great satisfaction.
Demand exceeds supply 3-4 times. To rent a one bedroom flat in the center of Murmansk now costs from 25.000 rubles (€630) per month. An economy-class one room flat in the suburbs costs 13.000-15.000 rubles.
Rental companies expect the tendency to continue throughout 2011. And more people are expected to come to Murmansk as the planned development projects within oil and gas and the Murmansk Transport Hub put up speed.
The Prirazlomnaya platform is designed to operate on Russia’s first offshore hydrocarbon field in the Arctic, the Prirazlomnoye oil field in the eastern part of the Pechora Sea about 60 km north of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
