A leading Russian maritime news service has contested the Russian Transport Minister's recent claims of the state of the country's orderbooks.
Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin in March claimed that Russia's shipbuilding market was booming and that the orderbook to he year 2020 for newbuild vessels at domestic yards reached 2,000 and was worth US$33 billion.
This claim has, however, been challenged by Alexei Bezborodov, head of Infranews, in Moscow. He said that Mr Levitin's figures had been wildly inflated and that there were only 120 vessels on order at 23 shipyards in Russia. He said that to fulfil Mr Levitin's claims, Russian shipyards would have to triple their capacity.
Furthermore, Vladimir Vityazev, said that there were limitations on the vessel sizes built in Russia. This is the reason why Gazprom builds large tankers overseas; Russia simply does not have the technology and capacity to build such large vessels, he told The Business Insider.
