Russia set to build new generation icebreaker

The State Corporation Rosatom has announced it would hold an open tender for contract for the construction of a flagship 60MW nuclear-powered icebreaker of new generation. In Russia, the most viable contractor to this order may be Baltic Shipyard, which represented by LLC Baltic Plant-Shipbuilding is preparing to submit an application for participation in the contest.

To build an icebreaker? A piece of cake!


The initial (maximum) contract price for the nuclear-powered icebreaker is about RUB 36.96 billion. The tender security amount is RUB 184.8 million, the contract execution security is RUB 11,087,880,000. The deadline for submission of the tender documents will expire on July 30, 2012.

Funding of the contract is to open in the current 2012 and will be carried out for next six years until the icebreaker is commissioned into service scheduled for 2017. In accordance with the tender documents, in 2012 for the order execution it should be allocated RUB 5 billion, in 2013 - five billion rubles, in 2014 - 10 billion rubles, in 2015 - 7 billion 916.2 million rubles, in 2016 - 5 billion 583.6 million rubles and in 2017 - 3,459,800,000 rubles.

The government is considering a possibility to attract, along with budgetary financing of the contract, extra-budgetary, private investments, as the new icebreaker will be providing, under long-term contracts, icebreaking services, which could make possible tariff regulation of these services. It’s worthy of note, that the Russian State Duma has approved recently in final reading a bill to regulate the management of shipping along the Northern Sea Route.

 Sailing on rivers and seas

The new-generation icebreaker marks a new stage in the development of the nuclear icebreakers building in Russia. First, it will be the most powerful (60 MW), and secondly, its main feature and advantage will be the ability to change the draft. All the previous generations of ice-breakers were divided into shallow-draft vessels and heavy, so respectively, each of them could not be used as a multipurpose icebreaker. Meanwhile, in the Russian Arctic it is necessary to work in conditions of heavy ice on the sea routes, and in estuaries. The new icebreaker will be able to operate in the two conditions mentioned above thanks to her design. The icebreaker fills up the ballast tanks with water (about 8,000-9,000 tons), submerges by 2 m, and voilà - the vessel becomes a heavy icebreaker! Approaching the mouth of the river and having discharged ballast water, the ship can sail as a shallow-draft icebreaker, with a draft of 8.5 meters, which is enough to enter, for example, the Bay of Dudinka or Ob and at Yamal to approach the fast ice boundary.

The icebreaker project 22 220 LK60 was designed at CDB “Iceberg." The new generation double-reactor plant "RHYTHM 200" designed by Rosatom’s "OKBM" has reactors of thermal capacity of 170 MW each - more than the capacity of the plant used in modern nuclear icebreakers (140-150 MW). At the same time, the "RHYTHM 200" is almost two times lighter and more compact, takes up less space on the ship. Structurally, this was accomplished by placing the steam generators directly in the reactor (integrated layout).

Competition, but very few bidders

Almost all the nuclear-powered icebreakers in the world were designed, build, and launched in the Soviet Union and Russia. The exceptions are shallow-draft nuclear icebreakers "Taymyr" and "Vaigach", which were built at Finland’s Wartsila Shipyard. However, nuclear power plants were installed in all the cases in Russia. With the exception of the legendary nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin" (built by Admiralty Plant, today - Admiralty Shipyards), all the icebreakers in the USSR and Russia were built at Baltic Shipyard based in St. Petersburg, which also specialized in installation nuclear reactors for them.
Thus, to date, Baltic Shipyard is the only organization which since 1956 has worked with the nuclear icebreakers, and also executed surface nuclear energy projects.

Meanwhile, recently Baltic Shipyard has appeared to be in a difficult situation related to the financial insolvency of United Industrial Corporation (shipyard’s parent company).
 
Due to the bankruptcy it was decided to established LLC Baltic Plant-Shipbuilding (now included in the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation), which assumed all jobs of Baltic Shipyard and its contracts. As a result of bidding for majority stake in Baltic Shipyard held on July 4, 2012 in Moscow, the auction winner was Western Center of Shipbuilding (a subsidiary  of United Shipbuilding Corporation). The auction was held on behalf of the Federal Agency for State Property Management (Rosimushchestvo) and in accordance with the decision of the Moscow district bailiff’s decision to put up for sale the debtor's property (April 20, 2012). The WCS purchased 971,524 shares for RUB 224 million (about 88.3%).

In addition, on May 25, 2012 Baltic Plant-Shipbuilding was licensed for the construction of a nuclear installation of the icebreaker of project 22220 (LC-60) with nuclear reactors "RITM-200" which is valid until March 1, 2017. Thus, the enterprise is legally prepared for the execution of the icebreaker order.
The management of LLC Baltic Plant-Shipbuilding intends to go ahead in building nuclear-powered icebreakers, and more - is currently developing a project to modernize it, through which the shipyard will be able to build ice-breakers of up to 100 MW (they do not yet have such projects, but expect to get them in the future).

We asked the press office of United Shipbuilding Corporation, which combines all the major shipyards of Russia, if there is any other contender for the flagship icebreaker contract, who would be willing to participate in the contest, but did not receive an answer.

Vitaly Chernov.