Gas tankers will be produced for Russia at shipyards in Mykolaiv under agreements signed in Moscow last Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Yurii Boiko has said, the Interfax Ukraine news agency reports.
"The Russian Federation is proceeding toward development of the Arctic coast, and it has ordered gas tankers from us, and they will be built at Nikolayev shipyards," Boiko said during the Unite Ukraine roundtable discussion in Kyiv on Friday.
“This order worth approximately USD 4 billion will be with us until 2020," he said.
On cooperation between Ukraine and Russia in the space industry, Boiko said that the two countries would work jointly on a heavy rocket that would be used to launch nearly 90 tons of cargo into orbit and that work was continuing on the Dnipro program.
It was earlier reported that businessman Vadym Novynskyi’s Smart Holding group expected to receive shipbuilding orders worth USD 4 billion from Russia by 2020. "We can receive and count on a significant volume of orders. It is about USD 4 billion by 2020," Smart Holding’s General Director Oleksii Pertin said during a meeting between Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Ukrainian industry representatives in Kyiv on December 13.
According to Pertin, Smart Holding may receive orders for trawlers and gas tankers in particular.
Smart Holding owns 23.75% of the shares in the Metinvest mining and metallurgical group, 95% of the shares in the shipbuilding holding Smart Maritime Group, and 99.97% of the shares in the Santis trade finance company. Smart Holding also owns major assets in the energy, property development, and agribusiness industries. The main beneficiary of Smart Holding is Vadym Novynskyi, who resigned as the chairman of the group’s supervisory board in early July following his election as a member of the Ukrainian parliament.