Models of new PRISCO tankers are being tested in an ice basin of the Marine Institute of Hamburg. Having won the tender on transportation of oil which will be recovered by the Sakhalin-1 Consortium within the frameworks of the cognominal project PRISCO chartered three ice class Aframax tankers. New tankers of 105 thousand tons deadweight will be constructed at the Ship-Building Yard in Ulsan owned by Hyundai Heavy Industries. They will become the first heavy tonnage tankers of 1 A ice class according to Swiss and Finnish classification. In their design all technical suggestions of PRISCO specialists and requirements of Exxon Neftegaz Limited were taken into account. As the tankers are planned to be used for all-year-round transportation of Sakhalin oil they are required higher safety standards because they will operate in difficult icy conditions. Double hull and additional equipment will provide safe operation of the ships which goes along with the wishes of the charterers and is an obligatory condition of the charter-party. Only three marine institutes – the Institute of Hamburg, Institute of Helsinki and Institute of Saint Petersburg - possess facilities for model testing of new ships of super ice class. The Yard has chosen the German Institute. Natural navigation conditions with ice of 70 cm thick are created in the basin. Director of the PRISCO Technical Department says that until now all models are successfully passing all the tests and experiments. It means that on finishing this stage of work the Yard can start developing technical documentation and then cut the metal and lay the kill. It is supposed that three new tankers will be delivered to PRISCO up to the end of 2005 – beginning of 2006.