Towage convoy consisting of three main and two spare sea tugs that are providing Mercury jackup rig towage left Arkhangelsk seaport on 14 November 2014. It is making its way to the eastern part of the Caspian Sea across the Volgo-Caspian navigation canal.

The towed construction was assembled at shipbuilding production association of Astrakhan for further assembly at Turkmensky shelf of the Caspian Sea in order to drill boreholes with depth of more than 9 km for hydrocarbons extraction. It is planned to install the jackup rig, which height and weight are 145 metres and 11 thousand tons, correspondently, at depths of 107 meters. The accommodation block of the rig has all necessary devices for relaxation and life of 105 persons.

Pilotage of the towage convoy is provided by the Astrakhan Branch pilots together with VTS operators of Astrakhan and Olya seaport, and departments of navigational and hydrographic information services of the branch, representatives of which provided marine survey of the convoy route.

In the period from 14 to 17 November at several parts of the Volgo-Caspian navigation canal, where the convoy is going to make stops in dark period of the day, one-way traffic will be organized.

Earlier, in October 2014, the Astrakhan Branch successfully provided pilotage of the ice-resistant stationary platform No. 1 upper construction in the Caspian Sea which was delivered to the place of its installation for equipment of V. Filanovsky oil field.