For seven years led by Alexey Rakhmanov The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) is busy modernizing the St. Petersburg plant Severnaya Verf.
In the near future, a tender should be held to select the next – the third in a row – contractor.
Previously, the well-known companies Metrostroy and Domestic Systems and Technologies (OST) worked at the facility, but contractual obligations with them were terminated. The reason is called the personal material interest of Rakhmanov.
Meanwhile, this year the plant is to commission four fishing vessels. In addition, within the framework of the state program of investment quotas, Severnaya Verf is building ten freezing processor trawlers for the Norebo Group and four longliners for the Globus and Virma companies.
The process of modernization of the enterprise, which is one of the executors of the state defense order, began in 2015. It was decided to build a boathouse with a slipway slab at the first stage, and a transfer dock and a hull processing shop at the second stage.
Competition for the construction of a boathouse in 2017 won “Metrostroy”, the work should have been completed in the 1st quarter of 2019. However, in December 2018, Rakhmanov said that the project had problems with the price approved by Glavgosexpertiza, and also accused the contractor of delaying its implementation.
After the termination of the contract with Metrostroy, work within the framework of the first stage of reconstruction was continued by the OST company. The contractor received 7.4 billion rubles from the budget for the construction of the slipway. He undertook to carry out the rest of the work at his own expense and financing from the Industrial Development Fund. It just turned out that due to the lack of a project for technological equipment, an “expensive shed” could be erected at the facility. As a result, at the end of last year, the contract with OST was also terminated due to, again, the failure to complete the work, which was planned to be completed in 2019.
Today, Rakhmanov says that the reconstruction of the boathouse can be completed by early 2023. That’s just the financial situation of the St. Petersburg plant is rapidly deteriorating. If in 2020 it brought a profit of 173.4 million rubles, then in 2021 it declared a loss of 3.5 billion. At the same time, the company has no problems with state contracts. As part of the civil and state defense order, it is loaded with contracts until 2027.
This is where a lot of questions arise, both for Rakhmanov and the general director of Severnaya Verf, the former governor of Arkhangelsk Igor Orlov. It is significant that in 2008-2011. Orlov headed the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad, but the contract with him was not renewed due to the failure of the contract with Indian partners, which threatened to impose fines of $40 million.