Russia to consolidate naval yards

Russia?s Federal Agency for Industry plans to unite all shipyards that build surface navy ships and submarines into two holdings thereby putting state interests above that of the shipyards? private shareholders, Izvestia daily reported. The decision is dictated by security reasons, the state officials say.

The paper said that the head of the agency Boris Alyoshin wants to set up a holding for the construction of submarines around Sevmash in the northern Arkhangelsk region, where the main base for repairing nuclear submarines, Zvezdochka, is also located. The submarine holding would also embrace the Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg and a plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Alyoshin also said the new structure might include private enterprises. According to the official, the St. Petersburg plants Baltiysky Zavod and Severnaya Verf are in the process of pooling their resources.

A uniform structure for the construction of surface navy ships will be set up in two phases, the official said. Initially, enterprises for making large and small vessels will belong to two different holdings, which will eventually be merged.

Igor Savelyev, head of the Baltiysky Zavod press service, said matters of merging corporations were the prerogative of private shareholders of the enterprises concerned. A source in the St. Petersburg shipyards said that the state had been nurturing plans for integrated structures in shipbuilding since the mid-1990s, but none of them were ever implemented. Experts, however, said that this time the state would have its way and unite the holdings.