Arctech Helsinki passes to Russian ownership

Arctech Helsinki Shipyard was established in December 2010 as a joint venture when USC bought half of the yard from STX Finland, a subsidiary of the Korean owned STX Europe. According to the yard, the joint venture was established to respond to the need of growing market of Arctic shipbuilding and to unite the Finnish and Russian maritime clusters. In 2013 the yard announced that in line with STX’s disposal of other European assets, it intended to become a fully-owned part of USC.

The yard specialises in building icebreakers and other ice-class ships. Its current orderbook comprises six ships: two icebreakers, one each for the Russian and Finnish authorities, due for completion in 2015 and 2016 respectively; an icebreaking supply vessel for Sovcomflot; and three icebreaking standby vessels, which together will keep the yard employed up to 2017.

”I am convinced that USC is committed to developing Arctech in long-term. We have a good order book and skilled staff. This is a good basis for future actions. We also believe that the owner commitment will now be stronger compared to the joint venture arrangement”, said Arctech Helsinki Shipyard MD Esko Mustamäki.

“We have closed the transaction on acquisition of the remaining 50% of Arctech Helsinki Shipyard Inc. Now this company is 100% owned by USC. Arctech Helsinki Shipyard has wide experience in building ice-class supply vessels and different civil ships. So we have obtained not only full access to technical documentation and the know-how but also to the people who can share this knowledge. The company has efficient assets, but the advantage of the asset is in its human potential”, said USC MD Aleksei Rakhmanov.