The government has allowed the use of vessels under foreign flags in cabotage transportation in Russia, if not impossible to find ships under the Russian flag. However, each flight will need to obtain permits — and to use the courts on hydraulic works, marine resource research, exploration and exploitation of the shelf. Asked about this, in particular, Gazprom and ExxonMobil.Vessels under a foreign flag and is not registered in any of the Russian registries allowed cabotage with a shortage of specialized domestic fleet. Appropriate changes to government regulation governing cabotage and other activities in the internal sea waters or the territorial sea of the Russian Federation by the courts under a foreign flag (No. 504), signed in late may, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Document published on the government website.According to the regulation, cabotage, and sunken in the sea of property, hydraulic engineering, underwater technical and other types of works in the territorial sea may be exercised by the courts under a foreign flag, is not registered in the Russian register in several cases. This is possible if for the relevant work required a special fleet, which is absent in Russia, as well as if the timing of these works, the volume or the area is inaccessible for the Russian Navy. Authorization for cabotage by foreign flag is issued “solely” for “one-time transportation or towing of cargo or passengers between points of origin and destination”. Does not include ice-breaker assistance, search, rescue and towing operations.In the list of works to which they are allowed to bring the fleet under a foreign flag, also included marine resource research, exploration and development of mineral resources of the seabed and subsoil, in internal sea waters and territorial sea of the Russian Federation, in the exclusive economic zone and the continental shelf.All mining projects in the Arctic require the use of expensive ice fleet, and to reduce the cost of the transportation scheme is expected to transship cargo from ice class ships in ordinary of the court in non-freezing ports of Russia, especially in Murmansk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This means that the transportation of cargo from the Arctic to, for example, Murmansk will be the cabotage before the adoption of these amendments can be made only on vessels under the Russian flag.The problem of using a foreign flag had been exacerbated with the adoption in late 2017, the new edition of the Code of trading navigation (KTM), which consolidated the Russian flag exclusive right to transport oil, gas and coal mined and shipped on the Northern sea route (see “Kommersant” on 17 November 2017). First with the lack of a sufficient number of ships under R��system flag faced NOVATEK, which sought to exclude for the Navy, working on “Yamal LNG”.In the end, the company received a permit for the transportation of LNG and gas condensate 26 tankers under foreign flags until 2044 (see “Kommersant” on March 19, 2019). The government allowed the export of these goods from the port of Sabetta and other vessels, contracts of affreightment and are not more than six months, but only until the end of 2021.Problems arose from ExxonMobil. In the new edition KTM was banned and floating drilling rigs and seismic vessels under foreign flag for operations on the continental shelf of the Russian Federation. ExxonMobil asked the government about the possibility of using foreign vessels for the development of the project “Sakhalin-1” as such vessels under the Russian flag is very small. ExxonMobil warned of possible delays to project implementation and “millions of cost” (see “Kommersant” on 24 July 2019). In addition, as he wrote RBC, on 30 October 2019, the need to allow the use of vessels under foreign flag on the Arctic shelf in the absence of the Russian analogues have declared in “Gazprom”.In March, President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving the government the authority to make decisions about the use of foreign vessels in certain types of work reserved for Russian vessels. Now in the state Duma also introduced a bill extending the restriction to certain types of work of the court should not just carry the Russian flag, and to be built in Russia.Anastasia Vedeneeva
