Offshore energy monopoly on table
Rosneft President Igor Sechin wants all Russian oil and gas companies to buy offshore technology from only one construction plant, the Zvezda yard outside Vladivostok.
As the Russian offshore oil and gas industry gets deeper into crisis, state-owned oil company Rosneft is pushing on government to find ways to vitalize the Zvezda yard, the major shipbuiding plant currently under construction outside Vladivostok.
In a recent letter to the Kremlin, Rosneft President Sechin argues that all Russian energy companies, and at least the state-owned ones, must be stimulated to place all their offshore technology orders at the Zvezda.
The letter comes after President Putin in 2014 expressed support for a similar suggestion, newspaper Kommersant reports.
In the letter, Rosneft also proposes to introduce a special tax on companies using vessels and offshore equiment made abroad, as well as amendments in offshore license term for the companies applying more than 30 percent foreign technology, the newspaper writes.
When completed, presumably in 2018, the Zvezda yard will be Russia’s by far most modern shipbuilding enterprise able to build large-size tankers, platforms, rigs and other maritime technology. It it to make Russia able to itself construct the technology needed for the country’s ambitious Arctic development program.
As previously reported, the total price tag of the Zvezda project is estimated to more than 100 billion roubles (€2,14 billion)
The Zvezda yard is owned by Rosneft together with Gazprombank and the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
