OREANDA-NEWS. On October 7, 2014, Director of Sovcomflot UK, Nicholas Fairfax (Lord Fairfax of Cameron) participated in the session of the Arctic Committee of the House of Lords along with other experts and representatives of shipping companies.

In his speech, Lord Fairfax informed on experience of Arctic operations of SCF ships and transit voyages of the company's tankers via sea lanes of the Northern Sea Route. According to Mr. Fairfax, only four years have passed since the first in history large-capacity tanker SCF Baltica completed her transit through the Northern Sea Route, but during this period Arctic shipping has considerably intensified, and voyages performed by the ships of Sovcomflot have proved the commercial expediency of that high-latitude route. Navigation in harsh environments imposes the whole range of strict requirements on a ship owner, which is why shipping in extreme climatic conditions is only possible with availability of specialized fleet and highly skilled crews with relevant experience.

Since 2010, ships of Sovcomflot Group perform voyages along the Northern Sea Route during Arctic navigation season. The SCF strategy is based on the gradual increase of the company's fleet participation in supplying of oil-and-gas fields on Russian continental shelf, including Arctic ones. Currently, the company's fleet numbers 153 ships with combined deadweight of 12.7 million tonnes, one third are high ice-class vessels. Sovcomflot supports large-scale energy projects in Russia and overseas, including Sakhalin-I, Sakhalin-II, Varandey, Prirazlomnoye, Tangguh, Escobar and Peregrino. The company is registered in Saint-Petersburg and has representative offices in Moscow, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Vladivostok, London, Limassol, Madrid, Singapore and Dubai.