A Russian
aircraft carrier which is being refurbished for the Indian Navy will
begin sea trials in May for the first time in two decades and is to
be handed over to India by December 2012, a shipyard official said on
Tuesday.
The purchase of the Soviet-built Admiral Gorshkov was agreed in 2004
with delivery initially due for 2008. The delivery date slipped on numerous
occasions and the final price for the ship has more than doubled.
The cost of refurbishing Gorshkov, to be renamed INS Vikramaditya, has
gone up from $947 million to $2.3 billion.
“The vessel is expected to undertake sea trials at the end of
May,” Sergei Novosyolov, deputy director of the Sevmash shipyard
in the far northern port of Severodvinsk, which is refitting the 45,000-ton
ship which Russia took out of service in 1992. |
