According to Governor of Murmansk Oblast Dmitry Dmitriyenko, the 16 floor high landmark in the middle of Murmansk might be rebuilt into living quarters for Shtokman workers, a press release from the regional government reads.
This was said in a meeting between Dmitriyenko and Head of StatoilHydro in Russia Bengt Lie Hansen. The main issue for the meeting was cooperation between Murmansk Oblast and StatoilHydro on social and educational projects. Dmitriyenko proposed that StatoilHydro could take part in a possible reconstruction of the Hotel Arktika, to what Hansen showed interest and promised to discuss the issue with his company’s partners in the Shtokman project.
The Hotel Arktika was built in 1983 and originally had 1030 beds. The hotel was privatized in 2006, with the administration of Murmansk town as owner of 50 percent of the stocks, and the company Eurasia Hotels and Holiday Resorts as owner of the rest, according to Hotelnews.ru.
The hotel was closed and reconstruction of the building started almost four years ago, but all work in the building seems to have come to a complete halt. For half a year, the building was used as an enormous advertising board, but the posters were removed sometime this spring.
Last week a meeting for the shareholders in Hotel Arktika was held in Murmansk. The Administration in Murmansk gave its partners strict notice that if reconstruction work is not resumed within a short time, the building will be expropriated, TV21.ru reports.
As BarentsObserver reported, the Shtokman Development Company has informed about plans to use a passenger ship as base for workers hired to build the Shtokman LNG plant in Teriberka on the coast of the Barents Sea.
