BELUGA 2
In 2005 Panalpina commenced a very special project for the Caspian Sea. For the construction of a crude oil processing plant in Atyrau, Kazakhstan the prefabricated parts (up to 650 metric tonnes) had to be transported from the Volga river to the construction site on the Ural River. After various possibilities were studied, it was decided to build two purpose-designed Ro-Ro barges for this task. The design calculations and the drawings were made up by the Italian naval architect NAOS Ship & Boat Design www.naos-design.com in Trieste.
The second barge, the BELUGA 2 was constructed under hull number 024500 at Lotos Shipyard, Astrakhan, Russian Federation. Im December 2005 the first steel plates were cut and on 09.06.2006 the barge was launched. The barge was delivered on 02.08.2006 to her owners Beluga Two Maritime Limited, Valletta, Malta.
Technical consulting and the supervision during construction was carried out by ABCmaritime, Nyon, Switzerland and after delivery the barges were operated jointly by Panalpina and by ABCmaritime.
To navigate on the Russian inland waters and in the Caspian Sea, the BELUGA 2 had to be registered under the Russian flag. For this a bare boat charter with a Russian shipping company was arranged and the barge was registered in Makhachkala, in Dagestan on the western shore of the Caspian Sea (official No.: 406, no call sign assigned).
The barge has no propulsion, however she has three diesel generators and a powerful ballast system. She is 80 m long and has a capacity of 2,840 metric tonnes dwt. A so-called barge keeper (not a bar keeper) lives permanently on board to operate the plant and to take on watch duties. Over the bow, which is closed by a removable door, cargo can be rolled on and rolled off. The barge can be immersed down enough to float-on and float-off any floating cargo, similar to a floating dock.
On the Ural River the barge had to be deballasted completely to negotiate the sand- and mud banks, then again to ballast down as much as possible to pass under low bridges.
Later the BELUGA 2 carried so-called IBEEV's (Ice Breaking Emergency Evacuation Vessel, see also in Google under "IBEEV") from Poland and from Turkey to the Caspian Sea, which were floated-on and floated-off. Over the winter periods the barge was laid-up in Astrakhan, as normally the Volga is frozen-up. As per our information, now she is employed in ordinary cargo work in the Caspian Sea.
HPS-SwissShips, September 2011