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Russia chooses Norwegian firm to help retrieve submariners' remains |
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September 28, 2000
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia will initial a contract with a Norwegian company on retrieving the remains of 118 sailors from the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk this week, a top government official said Wednesday. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, who is overseeing the salvage mission, told lawmakers in the upper house of parliament that the Russian side would initial an agreement with "a Norwegian company" on Saturday. He said that the retrieval work would begin before Oct. 10, and could be finished next month. But he cautioned that the operation "is a very complex technical question because sections one through five (of the submarine) are just heaps of metal," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Klebanov wouldn't name the company, but he confirmed that it would not be Norway's Stolt Offshore. The Rubin design bureau, which designed the Kursk and is in charge of salvage efforts, had been expected to sign an agreement with Stolt last week, but the deal fell through when the sides couldn't agree on payment terms, officials have said. According to the newspaper Kommersant, the deal failed because Stolt Offshore wanted dlrs 12 million, while Russia was willing to pay only dlrs 9 million. Russian divers don't have the equipment or the training to conduct the operation alone. Klebanov also said that the government was considering several proposals on lifting the submarine once the remains are removed, and that it was favoring a Russian-Belgian one. "It has technical novelties and is not expensive," ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying. The Russian ship Mstislav Keldysh arrived at the scene of the disaster on Tuesday carrying Mir deep water capsules, which will examine the submarine. The capsules have been used in the past to inspect the Titanic. The Kursk was shattered by an explosion and sank in the Barents Sea during naval exercises on Aug. 12. The cause of the accident has not been determined. |