ST. PETERSBURG—Russia must complete the formation of the national shipbuilding holding company by April 2009 to help develop offshore energy deposits in the Arctic, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

Russia needs to create “a line of marine technology for the extraction and transportation of hydrocarbon resources on the continental shelf, including drilling platforms, ice-class oil and gas tankers and ice-breakers,” said Putin.

State-run OAO Gazprom plans to spend $45 billion by 2030 on liquefied natural-gas projects, the biggest of which is the giant Shtokman offshore deposit in the Barents Sea.

Russian oil companies including OAO Rosneft and OAO Lukoil are seeking to tap offshore deposits to help offset declining production at Soviet-era Siberian fields.

The melting polar ice cap has eased access to hydrocarbon deposits and lengthened the shipping season north of the Arctic Circle.

The region holds as much as a seventh of the world’s untapped oil and gas deposits, according to the US Geological Survey.

Putin took office on May 8 after stepping down as president the day before and handing power to his successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin, a long-time Putin ally, will head state-run United Shipbuilding Corp., Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists in St. Petersburg.

Sechin, one of five deputy prime ministers in Putin’s Cabinet, replaces Sergei Naryshkin, appointed Tuesday as Medvedev’s chief of staff.

Ivanov said Russia plans to spend 136 billion rubles, or $5.7 billion, to develop shipbuilding from 2009 to 2016. The federal budget will provide more than 60 percent of the money, he said.

Putin said Russia needs to improve efficiency in the shipbuilding industry.

“It is still faster to build high-quality vessels abroad, and it’s often cheaper,” Putin said. “Shipbuilding must become one of the engines of high-tech growth in our economy.”

Russian shipbuilders take about 1 million man hours to complete a tanker with a dead weight of 150,000 metric tons, several times more than is required by Japanese and South Korean companies, Putin said. (Bloomberg)

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ST. PETERSBURG—Russia must complete the formation of the national shipbuilding holding company by April 2009 to help develop offshore energy deposits in the Arctic, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.