The cutter suction dredger (CSD) Artemy Volynsky arrived at the Volga-Caspian Maritime Shipping Channel dredging site earlier this week, FSUE Rosmorport said in its latest announcement.
The vessel will be involved in the dredging operations on the 143-144km section of the waterway.
Since the beginning of this month, another CSD, the Petr Sablin has been busy dredging in this area, working on the 138-139km area.
According to the FSUE Rosmorport activity schedule for dredging operations in 2017, the Astrakhan Branch expects to extract 1,1 million m³ of dredged material from the shipping canal.
Before the beginning of this maintenance dredging project, the Astrakhan Branch Navigational and Hydrographic Support Service measured bottom level of the canal to determine dredging operations area borders and to calculate the volume of the soil being excavated.
When finished, the dredging operations will raise the depth of Volga-Caspian Shipping Canal to 5.9 meters.