New shipbuilding cluster for St. Petersburg

The names of existing businesses that may be combined into the cluster have not been disclosed, but, according to sources close to the St. Petersburg government, they are expected to include leading local shipbuilding enterprises, such as Admiralty and Northern Shipyards, as well as the Baltic and Vyborg shipbuilding plants.

The new cluster would fit in with Russian government plans to significantly increase national shipbuilding capacity, which is currently small, at 30-50 ships per year. In addition, according to an official spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, there is a possibility that the new cluster may be involved in building of some ship types which have been hitherto seldom produced in Russia, such as oil-field vessels and advanced merchant ships.

The Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade believes that the project may be complicated by Western sanctions against Russia; although Russian shipbuilders will be able to establish domestic production of hulls, platforms, propellers and technically simple pieces of shipboard equipment they will inevitably face problems due to lack of advanced shipbuilding technologies, previously obtained through foreign imports.

The St. Petersburg government has already started talks with some Korean and Chinese shipbuilders regarding technology imports, despite the government spokesperson saying that quality was lower than European products. However, with the current relaxation of tensions between Russia and the West, there is a possibility that certain sanctions may be lifted by the end of October.

The St. Petersburg cluster is expected to be Russia’s third shipbuilding cluster, along with those currently established in the Russian Far East and Crimean regions.