Russia to inspect ships in Baltic Sea ports for explosives

In Russia, more than 3 billion rubles ($31-33 million) are allocated for underwater inspections of vessels in the Baltic ports of the Russian Federation.

The inspection is expected to be carried out for the presence of “constructively unintended objects and (or) explosives,” Russian media report.

FSUE Rosmorport announced an electronic auction for the performance of work on the inspection of the underwater part of vessels at anchorages in the waters of Russian seaports. The procurement is divided into 4 lots with the initial (maximum) contract price for each lot of 790 million rubles, according to materials from the unified information system in the field of procurement.

Lot No. 1 provides for the inspection of vessels in the port of St. Petersburg and the passenger port of St. Petersburg; lot No. 2 — in the ports of Ust-Luga and Primorsk; lot No. 3 — in the ports of Vysotsk and Vyborg, lot No. 4 — in the port of Kaliningrad.

This involves inspecting the underwater part of the vessel, in particular the propeller-rudder complex, thrusters, bow bulb, technological openings and bottom reinforcement, for the presence of foreign objects or explosives.

According to the procurement materials, the maximum cost of inspecting one vessel, depending on the class, is from 578 thousand rubles to 2.8 million rubles.

USM previously reported that Greek shipowners are stepping up inspections of vessels due to mysterious explosions.