Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Nov 15 -- South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries Co. has won a $422.5 million contract to build three ice-class crude oil tankers for Russian state-owned shipper Sovcomflot. Delivery is expected by Mar. 1, 2009.
Sovcomflot will use the vessels to transport crude from Varandei port in the Barents Sea for a joint venture set up by OAO Lukoil and ConocoPhillips. The tankers will ship oil to the port of Murmansk, where it will be transferred to larger vessels for shipments to various markets, including the US.
Osman Sapayev, a deputy director of oil production department at Lukoil, said the Verandei terminal will start shipments in 2007 and will reach 240,000 b/d after 2009.
Sapayev said Varandei may be expanded to 400,000 b/d, and a fourth ice-class tanker may be ordered as the companies boost production in Russia's Timan-Pechora province.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
