OREANDA-NEWS. February 02, 2011. Product carrier SCF Neva, owned by Sovcomflot, was the first vessel to load hydrocarbons from the new terminal at the port of Ust-Luga (Leningrad Region).

On 31 January 2011 the ice-classed product carrier SCF Neva, with the cargo of 44,000 tonnes of fuel oil, departed from the port of Ust-Luga heading for the port of Tallinn (Estonia).

Safe mooring for the tanker was made possible by tugs from Rosnefteflot (a Joint Venture between Sovcomflot and Rosneft) - Stavr, Dobrynya and Dunai, specially designed and constructed for working in the ports of the Northwest Region of the Russian Federation.

The Director of Fleet Operations Department for Sovcomflot, Andrey Babahanov, noted that the “Successful loading of fuel oil aboard the tanker SCF Neva on 31 January is a trial operation. In close coordination with the cargo owners and the port operators, we needed to check the functioning of all services and systems of Russia’s new oil products terminal. The data obtained during the handling of the tanker SCF Neva will be taken into account when the loading of large tankers is arranged in the port of Ust-Luga.”

The official opening ceremony for Russia’s new oil products terminal, in the port of Ust-Luga, is to take place in the first quarter of 2011.

The product tanker SCF Neva, built in 2006, is 47,125 tonnes dwt and has ice class 1A (according to international classification).

Sovcomflot (SCF) Group – is Russia’s largest shipping company and one of the world’s leading energy carriers.

• Its fleet comprises 148 vessels of about 11 million tonnes (dwt) in total; its current shipbuilding portfolio includes 18 ships representing an aggregate of more than 2 million tonnes (dwt).
• The average age of vessel in the tanker fleet is about 6.5 years (the world average age is 12 years).
• The company owns the largest ice-class fleet, being No.1 in the Arctic shuttle tanker and ice-class LNG tanker market segments.
• SCF Group is one of the world’s leaders by deadweight tonnage in the product carrier, Aframax and Suezmax tankers segments.
• The Group’s services include not only transporting hydrocarbons for its customers, but also trans-shipping crude oil via FSO facilities, terminal management and developing effective logistics for transporting energy, providing supply vessels services to drilling rigs and offshore platforms.
• In 2010 SCF Group was awarded Company of the Year in the annual Lloyd’s List Global Awards.
• Starting from 2001, SCF Group’s tankers have been the first vessels to deliver shipments from all the new oil ports of the Russian Federation: from the 1st and 2nd stage oil terminal and from the oil products terminal at the port of Primorsk, from the oil products terminal at the port of Vysotsk, from the port of Kozmino and from LNG terminal at the port of Prigorodnoye.