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Russia to Start Lifting Sunken 'Kursk' in July
Russia will begin to raise the sunken nuclear submarine "Kursk" from the seafloor of the Barents Sea in July this year and the salvage operation will be finished" by the end of September, or by October," Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Monday.
The dates were decided at a cabinet meeting on Monday, Kasyanov told a news conference in Moscow.
On the same day, Ilya Klebanov, Russian deputy prime minister and head of the special committee on the inquiry of the Kursk incident, told the reporters in Georgian capital Tbilisi, where he is on a two-day working visit, that the raising of the submarine will be completed before September 20.
The operation will take three months and proceed in two stages. The first stage will begin in July with a purpose work to separate compartment No. 1, which was worst damaged, and cut special holes in the submarine. After that, the rest of will be lifted, Klebanov said.
Russian experts will lift the first compartment alone. Afterwards, experts of the International consortium will raise the most parts of the sub wreck, he said.
A contract with the International consortium, which will take part in the operation to lift the Kursk, will be signed in St. Petersburg on May 20, Klebanov said, adding that negotiations on the contract were under way.
"Final talks on the contract will be held this week. The Defense Ministry, the Rubin design board ("Kursk" designer), the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry will represent Russia in the talks," he said.
The Kursk sank during exercises in last August, killing all its 118 crewmen onboard.
But the international consortium does not rule out that raising Kursk sub may be postponed until 2002.
Lars Walder, chief manager of the Dutch company Smit Tak, which is a member of the consortium, told Interfax news agency Monday that Russia has not notified the company about the date of signing the contract.
Walder confirmed that the technical details of the upcoming operation have been fully agreed upon. However, the main problem, financing, has still not been solved, he said. He noted that, apart from verbal statements, the company has no actual guarantees of financing.
Heerema Marine Contractors, another member of the consortium, told Interfax that due to difficulties with the solution of financial problems, the raising of the Russian submarine may be rescheduled for next summer.
The international consortium includes two Dutch companies (Heerema and Smit Tak) and the Norwegian division of U.S. oil services company Halliburton.
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