Icebreakers

George1 wrote:Russia's Rosatom to expand icebreaker fleet

Rosatom's icebreakers provided safe waterways to 410 ships with a total cargo capacity of 5.3 million tonnes through the Northern Sea Route in 2016

ARKHANGELSK, March 31. /TASS/. Russia’s nuclear power corporation Rosatom will expand its nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet as the deadlines for commissioning a number major projects draw near and the implementation of the Northern Sea Route development concept goes ahead. Rosatom will have to order up to five nuclear-powered icebreakers of a new generation - Leader, the corporation’s CEO Aleksey Likhachev has told TASS.

"As far as the fleet’s further expansion is concerned, we are to order more effective icebreakers, the Leader class ones, for instance. It makes no sense to make just one pilot project without having plans for its eventual serial production. Indeed, three to five icebreakers of a new generation will have to be built. But a decision to lay the keel of the first Leader icebreaker is to be made first," Likhachev said.

He added the decision was to be made by the government. The project would require substantial government support, he added.

Likhachev did not specify the likely costs of the Leader icebreaker project, adding that it would be more expensive than the The Arktika, currently under construction, which cost the corporation 37 billion rubles ($600 mln). Earlier, Deputy Economic Development Minister Aleksandr Tsybulsky said the icebreaker of project 10510 (leader) equipped with a 120-megawatt power plant will cost 70 billion rubles ($1.2 bln) to build.

The Leader icebreaker will be twice more powerful than any of the current ones. Also, it will be thrice wider, which will enable it to escort far larger ships.

The Northern Sea Route

Rosatom's icebreakers provided safe waterways to 410 ships with a total cargo capacity of 5.3 million tonnes through the Northern Sea Route in 2016, Likhachev said.

"In 2015, with the support of the Rosatom nuclear fleet, 195 vessels with a total cargo capacity of 2 million tonnes were navigated along the Northern Sea Route, in 2016 this number was already 410 vessels and the cargo volume reached 5.3 million tonnes. I think that in 2017, this increase will be maintained, because there are relevant contracts, "he said.

According to the forecast of Rosatom, in 3-5 years the volume of cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route may grow up to 35 million tonnes.

"The demand for this route has been confirmed by such major projects as Yamal LNG, which is implemented by Novatek and development of the Novoportovskoye field by Gazprom Neft," Likhachev said.

The Northern Sea Route - is the main sea route in the Russian Arctic. The Russian Ministry of Transport forecasts cargo turnover along the Northern Sea Route by 2020 will grow tenfold to 65 million tons per year. The route crosses seas of the Arctic Ocean (Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukotka) and partially the Pacific Ocean (the Bering Sea). The Northern Sea Route from the Kara Gate to the Providence Bay is about 5,600 km long. The distance between Saint Petersburg to Vladivostok along the Northern Sea Route is more than 14,000 km, while the distance vessels cover by the Suez Canal is more than 23,000 km.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/938717

George1 wrote:The delivery of the projected atomic icebreakers of Project 22220 was rescheduled

As the newspaper Kommersant writes in the article of Anastasia Vedeneeva, Ivan Safronov, Yuri Barsukov, Vladimir Dzaguto; Herman Kostrinsky "The Arctic" fell into a drift. The Federal Security Service and the Prosecutor General's Office will be engaged in the nuclear icebreaker ", the construction of the main nuclear icebreaker LK-60YA" Arctic "demanded the intervention of Vladimir Putin - only he was able to decide to move the project from 2017 to 2019. Serial "Siberia" and "Ural" will be delivered in 2021 and 2022. The failure of the deadline, one of the key reasons for which was the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, may turn into a scandal: the president has already instructed to take "personnel and organizational and managerial decisions," the Accounts Chamber, the Prosecutor General's Office and the FSB will begin inspections. The customer, Rosatom, and the contractors, in particular the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), can respond. But the sources of Kommersant do not expect high-profile dismissals, because the project was launched even when Rosatom was headed by the first deputy head of the presidential administration, Sergei Kiriyenko.

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2725380.html

a mistake - in fact, Khartsyzsk pipe was not supposed to supply turbines; when in 2013 CAM won a tender for turbine units that was planned to be manufactured at the Kirov plant turbine only test at Khartsyzsk pipe, which has a special stand - bmpd

flamming_python wrote:With the Arctic icecap melting so rapidly I have to wonder aloud if Russia is wasting billions of dollars on soon to be needless ships and technology?

George1 wrote:Atomflot is considering the possibility of building icebreakers on liquefied gas instead of nuclear

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/2865185.html