On 19 May, Ilya Zyubin, President of MSU-1 GC; Artem Bortnevsky, Executive Director; Alexey Kozlov, Vice President; Dmitry Galimov, Head of the Hydraulic Engineering Department; and other Company representatives took part in a site meeting held by the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy in Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod Region.
The meeting was called to check the progress towards the retrofit of navigation locks Nos. 15 and 16 at the Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures as well as the construction of an additional lock chamber and a shipping channel from Gorodets to Nizhny Novgorod.
In attendance were representatives of several government departments: the Federation Council Committee, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Federal Water Resources Agency, and the Agency for Maritime and River Transport as well as representatives of regional and city authorities and experts.
The Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures ranks among the 20 largest infrastructure projects to be financed by the federal budget.
At a meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev highlighted the need to fast-track the revamp of the Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures. The contract deadline to complete construction and installation work for the retrofit project was set for 2024.
The retrofit of the navigation locks at the Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures also involves large-scale dredging of the Volga River and will increase the river section’s throughput capacity up to 23 million tonnes of cargo per annum, enable international navigation in the European part of Russia, and remove infrastructure constraints on the main Volga routes for cargo and passenger traffic.
Rostransmodernizatsiya is the customer, and MSU-1 GC is the general construction contractor and general design contractor. The first start-up facility involves:
• the construction of lock chamber No. 15a and sufficient lock approaches for ships to pass through the section;
• the construction of moorings with a total berth length of 150 m;
• dredging the worst bottlenecks in the shipping channel from Gorodets to Balakhna.
The project will remove the current constraints on moving ships through the Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures, improving its throughput capacity to 12 million tonnes per annum.
“The tone of the meeting was positive. Officials from federal agencies reaffirmed their commitment to providing any kind of support for this critical project. We reviewed the current situation, discussed plans, and will continue working on it,” said Dmitry Galimov, Head of the Hydraulic Engineering Department at MSU-1 GC. “The retrofit of the Gorodetsky complex of hydraulic structures is a landmark project – not only for our company but for the whole country. Russia has not seen construction of such complex and strategically important technical structures for 40 years. That is why the project is being monitored by President Vladimir Putin. By implementing this project, MSU-1 GC will help secure the economic and technological independence of Russia today and in the future.”
