The cost to repair the Yekaterinburg, a Russian nuclear submarine damaged by fire late last December, will total about 500 million rubles ($16.5 million), Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Thursday.
“The repairs will cost about 500 million rubles,” Rogozin said.
Some media reports previously said the costs would exceed 1 billion rubles but Rogozin denied those reports.
On December 29, the outer hull of the Yekaterinburg, a Delta-class nuclear submarine, caught fire during repairs at a shipyard in northwest Russia's Murmansk Region. Seven crewmembers and two responders were injured as they battled the fire, which was put out the following day.
There was no radiation leak because the reactors had been shut down before repairs began.
The submarine’s hydro acoustic system was disabled by the fire and will need to be replaced before it is brought back into service.
Delta-class submarines have an outer skin of anechoic rubber, designed to absorb sound from sonars to make the boat harder to detect, that can burn in a dry environment. However, the boat has a double hull of thick steel, which would protect its interior from external fire.
The repairs are scheduled to start this summer.
