OREANDA-NEWS. The new LNG-carrier SCF Melampus, added to PAO Sovcomflot's (SCF Group) fleet in January 2015, has successfully passed the vetting inspection by her charterer Shell and has started her transit to Bonny Island (Nigeria). The vessel's first destination is the Nigerian LNG plant, owned by an international consortium of Shell, Total, Eni and NNPC. It is expected that the ship's first cargo will be for discharge in one of the ports of South-East Asia.

SCF Melampus is the third tanker in a series of state-of-the-art vessels being built under a partnership agreement between Sovcomflot and the shipyard of STX Offshore & Shipbuilding. The naming ceremony for the ship was held on 16 December 2014.

The current Sovcomflot fleet comprises eleven LNG and LPG carriers, which serve high-profile clients from the world's largest oil & gas companies, including Gazprom, Sakhalin Energy, Sibur, Shell and Transammonia. Sovcomflot's gas carriers operate on a global basis, and serve all main regions where LNG is produced and consumed. Sovcomflot ships are involved in numerous Russian and international shipping and transhipping projects.

SCF Group's ship-building programme includes the construction of two ultra-modern LNG carriers, one of which is a reinforced ice-class vessel for the Yamal LNG project planned to be operated on the Northern Sea route.

SCF Group (PAO Sovcomflot) is one of the world's leading shipping companies, specialising in the transportation of oil, petroleum products, LNG and LPG. The company's fleet includes 153 vessels with a combined deadweight of 12.74 million tonnes. The company is registered in St. Petersburg and has representative offices in Moscow, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, London, Limassol, Madrid, Singapore and Dubai.