A naming ceremony took place today for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier at STX O&S shipyard in the city of Jinhae (South Korea). The vessel was named Velikiy Novgorod. It will be the fifth in Gazprom's tanker fleet.

Taking part in the ceremony were Alexander Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Sergey Frank, Director General of Sovkomflot.

Velikiy Novgorod is a gas carrier with membrane cargo tanks and a cargo capacity of 170.2 thousand cubic meters. It is equipped with a diesel-electric drive, which can be fueled by LNG, fuel oil or gasoil. The vessel is certified as Ice2 class vessel and can ship cargoes in low-temperature conditions, including via the Northern Sea Route during the navigation period in the open water.

The ship is classified according to the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping and Lloyd's Register. The crew will be made up of Russian sailors.

Gazprom Marketing & Trading (GM&T) will charter Velikiy Novgorod from Russian shipping company Sovcomflot. It will be the first vessel in a series of high-tech ice-class LNG carriers that have been designed on Gazprom's order. The vessel will be delivered to GM&T in late January of 2014.

“At present, Sovcomflot is constructing a similar gas carrier – Pskov – which is due to be delivered to Gazprom this September.

Gazprom is pursuing a stagewise strategy in the LNG production and supply sector. As part of these efforts, we are creating our own tanker fleet capable of shipping LNG to any terminal of the world, as well as along the Northern Sea Route.

The Velikiy Novgorod and Pskov tankers allow Gazprom to increase the scope of its trading operations and enhance its positions in the global LNG market,” said Alexander Medvedev.

Background

Gazprom accounts for nearly 5 per cent in the global LNG production supplying LNG to ten countries worldwide: Japan, Korea, China, India, Taiwan, the UK, the USA, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. The Company's tanker fleet comprises four chartered gas carriers: LNG Pioneer (cargo capacity – 138 thousand cubic meters), Yenisei River (149 thousand cubic meters), Lena River and Ob River (155 thousand cubic meters each). Gazprom plans to expand its share in the global LNG market to 15 per cent, when the Vladivostok LNG and Baltic LNG projects come onstream.

Gazprom Marketing & Trading Limited (GM&T) is Gazprom's wholly-owned company dealing with Russian LNG sales abroad and LNG deliveries from third countries.

Sovcomflot Group is one of the world's leading shipping companies specializing in marine transportation of hydrocarbons as well as supporting offshore exploration of oil and gas deposits. The company is the world's largest operator of ice-class LNG carriers. Its own and chartered fleet includes 158 vessels with a total cargo capacity of nearly 12 million tons.

According to the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, Ice2 class includes ice-going vessels capable of non-escorted transit in the ice cake and brash ice of Nearctic seas or in solid ice escorted by an icebreaker, with ice thickness reaching up to 0.55 meters.

Lloyd's Register is the oldest and world's largest ship-classification society. It is a voluntary association of ship owners, ship builders, engine builders and insurance underwriters.