St. Petersburg's Almaz shipyard will start construction Friday of a new gunboat for Russia's Navy, the company said Tuesday.

The Makhachkala Project 21630 gunboat, designed to patrol Russia's 200-mile maritime economic zone, will be the third ship of the series built by the shipyard.

Almaz Shipbuilding Company won a tender held by the Russian Navy to build Project 21630 type gunboats in spring 2003. The first ship, Astrakhan, is currently preparing for state sea testing.

Almaz is one of Northwest Russia's leading shipyards. It was established in 1901 and has built more than 1,000 missile and patrol boats for the Russian Navy and Coast Guard and foreign clients since then. Sales in 2005 were more than 1.7 bln rubles ($61.46 million).

The company is currently modernizing a Project 12322 hovercraft for the Navy, and is building a Project 10410 patrol boat and a Project 12200 patrol boat for the Federal Security Service (FSB).

News source: en.rian.ru
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