The government has almost halved the number of RSD59 project dry cargo ships that are to be built as part of the program of preferential leasing of civilian ships, according to a decree of the Cabinet of Ministers. According to the document, which was noticed by “Vedomosti”, in 2023–2028, the State Transport Leasing Company (STLC) is supposed to transfer 18 such “river-sea” class dry cargo ships to lessees. The financing of the project is estimated at almost 30 billion rubles, of which 23.1 billion are planned to be attracted from the National Wealth Fund (NWF), and the rest – from borrowed funds.
Initially, the series of ships was supposed to be much larger. The contract for the construction of 34 STLC dry cargo ships was concluded with the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) in 2023. Then the cost of one ship was 1.25 billion rubles, now it has risen to 1.67 billion. It was planned that 10 dry cargo ships would be transferred to STLC by the end of 2024, 12 by October 2025, and another 12 by February 2027. However, the deadlines were missed. In 2024, the company did not receive a single dry cargo ship. The main reason was the financial problems of the “Krasnoe Sormovo” shipyard: the actual cost of construction exceeded the contract prices, which led to losses. As a result, the delivery of the ships was postponed to 2025–2028. Eight of them were supposed to be received by STLC last year. However, there is no public information that this happened (The Moscow Times).
