A Russian shipyard is building a nuclear-powered deep-sea submersible capable of both research and rescue missions, officials said.

The construction, dubbed Project 09852, will take place at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, a port city on Russia's White Sea in the northwest of the country, RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

The shipyard's main activity is the building of ships and submarines for the Russian Navy, and it is the only shipyard in Russia producing nuclear submarines.

When completed, the submersible will be available for research and search-and-rescue operations in remote and difficult-to-access parts of the world's oceans, the shipyard said in a statement.

No estimation of a completion date for the submersible, designed by the St. Petersburg-based Rubin Central Design Bureau, was given.