To replace the retiring river fleet, USC proposed mass‑producing tugboats and barges

The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) presented proposals 
for updating the river fleet for inland waterways in the Far East as part 
of the “Maritime Congress – Far East 2026”. According to Sudostroenie.info, 
citing the corporation’s press service, Mikhail Afonyutin, Director of the Sales 
and Contracting Department for Civil Shipbuilding, delivered a report.

As a representative of the USC noted, the corporation’s proposals are addressed not to a single basin, but to the entire system of inland waterways 
in the Far East, including the Amur, the Lena basin, the Yana, the Indigirka, the Kolyma, the Anadyr, and the Kanchalan. These routes are characterized 
by different cargo tasks — northern delivery, transportation of fuel and lubricants, construction materials, equipment, project cargo, containers, 
supply of settlements and resource projects, as well as export‑import and transit transportation. As one example of the growth in the cargo base, 
the Amur River was cited: according to preliminary estimates, in 2025, cargo transportation along the river reached 3.5 million tons, increasing 
by approximately 1.2 million tons compared to the 2024 level; by 2040, a target of up to 7 million tons is being considered.

Updating the civilian fleet remains one of the key tasks for inland waterways, given the high proportion of vessels in older age groups. To ensure 
stable shipping and replace the aging fleet, it is necessary to build at least 500 vessels over the next 10 years..

The most common and practically востребованный type of cargo river fleet for the rivers of the Far Eastern Federal District is barge‑tug 
combinations. Currently, Russia has 3,412 river tugs, the average age of which is 49 years, and 42% of the vessels are over 50 years old. 
At the same time, over the past 25 years, only 57 new river tugs have been built.

As priority areas for serial construction applicable to various river basins of the Far East, USC proposes to consider river push‑tugs with a power 
output of 220 and 440 kW, vessels with a power output ranging from 600 to 1500 hp, as well as a modernized line of tugboats 
of the OT‑2000 / OT‑2400 type. The specific configuration of the series should be determined taking into account the cargo base, depth, 
navigation restrictions, and operating conditions of each basin. The corporation has experience in constructing barge‑tug combinations.

Among the key conditions for launching the program are the synchronization of cargo base growth across all river basins in the region, 
the development of river infrastructure, accessible financing for shipowners, and the creation of unified series solutions. Possible support 
measures include subsidies for shipowners’ construction projects, compensation for part of the costs incurred by enterprises when building tugboats 
in the Far Eastern Federal District, or the launch of a specialized targeted program for the construction of river tugboats with a duration 
of at least 10 years.