ST. PETERSBURG: June 10, 2019. Russia’s energy shipping company Sovcomflot and China’s COSCO Shipping Corporation are to set up Maritime Arctic Transport, a joint venture to transport LNG across the Northern Sea Route that also includes natural gas producer Novatek and the Silk Road Fund.

The four companies have agreed to manage an icebreaking tanker fleet of new and existing Arctic ice-class vessels to deliver LNG from oil and gas projects in Russia, including Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 2. Sovcomflot operates over 80 ice class vessels.

"The sheer scale and level of technical complexity of the new international project to provide safe, year-round, transportation for LNG across the Northern Sea Route have required the combination of a whole range of intellectual, technological, human and financial resources, from leading Russian and Chinese organisations and businesses,” explained Sovcomflot president and CEO Sergey Frank.

“The project's transport and logistics are consolidated around a single operational platform that will contribute to increased efficiency, safety, and further optimisation of the entire cargo transit traffic system through the waters of the [NSR], including the Polar Silk Road project," he added.

Sovcomflot’s is headquartered in St. Petersburg with offices in Moscow, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, London, Limassol, and Dubai.

Pictured: The agreement was signed at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum by Sergey Frank, president and CEO of Sovcomflot; Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of the Management Board of Novatek; Xui Lizhong, chairman of the Board of COSCO Shipping Corporation; and Wang Yanzhi, president of the Silk Road Fund.