OREANDA-NEWS. September 26, 2011. From 19-20 September 2011, the Tenth annual Sovcomflot (SCF) business partners conference took place in St. Petersburg.

The conference was attended by: members of the SCF Board of Directors; representatives from ministries and organisations of the Russian Federation; leading Russian and international oil and gas companies; banks; investment, insurance and shipbuilding companies; analytical and other organisations.

A number of presentations were delivered at the conference. Artur Chilingarov, special representative of the President of the Russian Federation spoke about international cooperation in the Arctic and the Antarctic. Other speakers at the conference were: Sergey Frank, SCF President and CEO; Alexey Yakovitsky, Global CEO of VTB Capital; Nikolai Grigoriev, Director of Global Shipping and Logistics, Gazprom Global LNG; Andrey Okhotkin, Commercial Director, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd.; Michael Parker, Managing Director, CITI; Francois Ravel, Vice President, LNG Marketing, Total; Stephen Gordon, Director, Clarkson Research Services Ltd.; Jan Anderson, Managing Director, ST Shipping Pte; Tom Boardley, Marine Director, Lloyd’s Register; Mikhail Popov, Vice-President, OAO Novatek.

The speakers and the conference participants discussed the situation in the world freight market. They also considered the outlook for the implementation of new oil and gas projects in Russia and in the world, including SCF’s participation. During the plenary meeting and at subsequent round-table discussions, significant attention was paid to the issue of developing innovative technologies in commercial shipping.
In his welcome address, Artur Chilingarov noted the special role Sovcomflot is playing in the development of the Arctic: “Today we are facing the most important tasks to progress the establishment of a proper transportation infrastructure in the northern regions of Russia, and of expanding the country’s icebreaking fleet.

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is the key factor in the implementation of Russia’s state policy in the Arctic. According to experts, the total volume of freight flow along this transportation route may exceed 5 million tonnes in 2012. In this context the work of SCF Group and the professionalism of its crews should be praised. The voyages performed by its tankers (SCF Baltica – last year and Vladimir Tikhonov – this year) along the seaways of the NSR, delivering cargo to the markets of the South Eastern Asia, are unprecedented in terms of the scale of the projects and of the results achieved. They confirmed the large potential and strategic importance of making further use of the high-latitude routes of the Northern Sea Route, with icebreaker escorts, to deliver energy from Russia’s offshore oil and gas fields of the Barents and Pechora Seas to the markets of the Asia Pacific Region.”

SCF President and CEO Sergey Frank informed the participants about SCF Group’s results in 2010 and H1 2011 and presented the company’s Development Strategy to 2017. “Recently the company has achieved significant success with the implementation of its Development Strategy, in particular, in resolving the task of setting up a national contractor, on the basis of SCF, to provide comprehensive services to Russia’s offshore oil and gas fields. The Group specialises in operating its fleet in harsh climatic and ice conditions: shuttle-tanker fleet has been expanded; the seaborne part of the Sakhalin offshore projects has been consolidated; new ice-class supply vessels have been ordered and are being constructed. The Group’s ships were the first to start loading oil from the new offshore field in Brazil. Not long ago a new high-tech seismic exploration vessel joined the Group’s fleet. It is capable of working at the offshore fields of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic seas and today is the best ship of her class in the world.

“Last year was difficult for the whole shipping industry, the most difficult in ten years. However, SCF’s business model demonstrated stability in the face of economic decline and a capability of withstanding the market’s negative trends. SCF Group was the only large tanker company to generate profit in H1 of 2011. It successfully entered new strategically important market segments for Russian energy whilst maintaining its leading position in conventional trades. SCF maintains its priorities, namely: quality seaborne transportation; safe navigation and protection of the marine environment”, concluded Sergey Frank.