President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has attended a ceremony to launch the first tanker built at Baku Shipyard on the order of the Azerbaijan Caspian Sea Shipping Closed Joint-Stock Company and the commissioning of “Azerbaijan” ferry boat.

“[This is] a Volga-Don MAX project. It is a tanker that is able to cross the Volga-Don River and has a maximum carrying capacity. Unlike others, it has the capacity to pass over this canal with a load capacity of more than 4-5 thousand tons with a maximum load of 5,600 tons,” the chairman stated.

The crude oil tanker was named “Lachin” in honor of a region located around the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Both Nagorno-Karabakh region and Lachin district, along with six other districts of the country, were occupied by Armenia during a full-scale war that lasted from 1991 until a ceasefire deal in 1994.

A ferry vessel named “Azerbaijan” was also launched. As a roll on-roll off and passenger ferry, it can carry 50 railway cars, 50 TIR trucks and 100 passengers. The state-of-the­-art boat was designed based on a project provided by Ukraine’s Odesa Marine Engineering Bureau and is available primarily for short international voyages.

Maritme Business World