Akademik Cherskiy (ship)

The construction of the ship had two different phases. The initial works began in 2007 and were done by Jiangsu Hantong Heavy Industries near Shanghai in China.^[1] The second phase was completed in 2015 in a shipyard in Singapore^[1] on orders of a then unknown company. It was originally christened Jascon 18. Sea Trucks Group (STG), a Dutch-Nigerian joint venture and the Nigerian Walvis International were at times linked to the vessel^[2] but these ownerships were not corroborated. In 2016 it was known that the owner of the ship was MRTS, a company linked to Gazprom and completed in Singapore in 2015.^[3] MRTS later sold the ship to Gazprom Flot^[1] and Russian newspapers appear to confirm that Gazprom has sold the ship since.^[4] In December 2019, after the United States threatened to sanction Allseas, the pipe layer involved in the construction in the Nord Stream pipe-line up to this time would not finish its construction and Akademik Cherskiy was taken into consideration to finish the job the pipe layers of Allseas have begun.^[5][6] In February 2020, starting in Nachodka in far-east Russia, it began its journey over the Cape of Good Hope to Sassnitz, the Baltic Sea where it arrived in June 2020.^[7] In Sassnitz, the vessel underwent an extensive upgrade which would prepare the ship for the works at the Nord Stream II pipe-line.^[8] In December 2020, it was announced that the vessel has been deployed to take up the work to complete Nord Stream II^[9] where it joined another Russian pipe-layer Fortuna in April.^[10]