Media: Russia to announce the Mistral tender winner in the next few days

24.12.2010 Russia will announce winner of the Russian Navy's tender regarding four Mistral class assault landing ships in the nearest days. It is going to be French naval shipbuilding company DCNS which constructs such ships, writes Le Monde referring to a number of informed sources.

The contract cost will make somewhat EUR 2 bln. It provides that two Mistrals will be constructed by STX shipyards in Saint-Nazaire. Other two carriers will be assembled in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Details of the contract were specified during official visit of DCNS delegation to Moscow. Although the visit was not summarized at a press conference, the official announcement is just a matter of time. According to some sources in Moscow and Paris, Russian authorities will announce the tender winner either on Dec 24 or on Dec 25. An official from French embassy in Moscow gave more obscure comment; according to him, the announcement will be made till the current year is over.

The Russian Navy's closed tender for Mistral class helicopter carriers was finished in mid-Nov. United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) submitted a request for participation, as well as French, Spanish, German, and South Korean companies.

By all appearances, DCNS will build the ships in St. Petersburg in cooperation with USC. The two companies tied an agreement to establish a shipbuilding consortium late in Oct 2010.

DCNS director Pierre Legros said on Oct 26 that his company was not limited in technology transfer to Russia. In the same day Russian defense ministry issued a tender for procurement of two assault landing ships for Russian Navy. Shipbuilding corporation STX declared on Oct 29 that France was ready to build the first helicopter carrier for Russia in 2013.

In Dec 2009 it was reported that Russia could announce a tender for Mistral class helicopter carrier along with license to build such ships in Russia. The U.S. negatively reacted on that information. In Feb 2010 French defense ministry accorded permission to sell the ship to Russia. The parties launched official talks in spring. Representatives of Russian defense industry said in Aug 2010 that the heli-carriers would be purchased as a result of an open tender with participation of foreign and Russian companies. United Shipbuilding Corporation offered the defense ministry to buy a $650-mln Korean landing ship Dokdo which is analogous to Mistral. French president Nicolas Sarkozy declared few days later that his country would build two Mistral class carriers for Russia and emphasized that the parties had already come to terms on that.

Assault landing ship Mistral with displacement of 21,000 tons and overall length of 210 meters is capable to make over 18 knots. The ship's fuel range is up to 20,000 miles; the crew consists of 160 men plus about 450 marines. Air group includes 16 helicopters; six of them can be simultaneously placed on the flight deck. The ship's hangar deck accommodates over 40 tanks or 70 wheeled trucks.

The ship displayed good performance parameters, having evacuated 4,700 civilians from Beirut during Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in summer of 2006. Presently, only French Navy has such ships in inventory; they are Mistral and Tonnerre. France builds the third helicopter carrier of this class – Dixmude. There are no open information about exports of Mistral ships to other countries except Russia.