That amount of equipment is to meet the annual demand for dredging on Northern Sea Route
To develop and maintain Russia’s port infrastructure on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) FSUE Hydrographic Company, a company of Rosatom, needs to get 11 units of dredging fleet by 2026-2027, Aleksandr Bengert, General Director of Hydrographic Company, said at the 6th Hydraulic Engineering and Dredging Congress organized by IAA PortNews.
“Repair dredging in the Gulf of Ob (Sabetta port, Utrenny terminal, Sea Canal) will certainly grow from 1.5 million cbm in 2023 to 5 million cbm in 2026. Today, we must solve the task of attracting ships to the flag of the Russian Federation in order to increase our performance,” said Aleksandr Bengert.
Hydrographic Company has calculated the potential need for the dredging fleet basing on the infrastructure development projects. According to the speaker, Phase I (to begin not later than 2023) will require one hopper dredger with a hold of 7,000-10,000 cbm, one hopper dredger with a hold of 4-6 thousand cbm, two ships for seabed leveling and one hydrographic vessel.
From 2026-2027, the company will need a hopper dredger with a hold of 7,000-10,000 cbm, one hopper dredger with a hold of 4-6 thousand cbm, a bucket-type dredger (with aт 11-cbm bucket), a hydrographic vessel and two barges with a hold of 1,000 cbm.
That amount of equipment is to meet the annual demand for dredging on Northern Sea Route.
According to Aleksandr Bengert, there are no ships of the key types in the market of Russia. Therefore, they should be attracted from the foreign market. “This alternative is considered as the optimal one to meet the tasks of 2023-2026. However, the global market is limited when it comes to the key types of ships required. It is a sad situation. If everybody believes that buying a good dredger in the foreign market is easy, this is not so. Only Asian countries are ready to sell, it is not so simple,” said the General Director of Hydrographic Company adding that various alternatives are under consideration including chartering of ships.
When speaking of the domestic construction prospects, Aleksandr Bengert mentioned the company’s talks with the designers. “According to our calculations, we are not to see Russia’s first ship (hopper dredger) before 2027-2028. That should be type project that can be scale up. We are not supposed to build non-type ships today. It is necessary to create a ship able to ensure maximum solutions in the area of Rosmorport’s and Hydrographic Company’s responsibility. The key challenge is not the ship as it is but the domestically-produced equipment which is beyond our capabilities so far,” he said.
FSUE Hydrographic Company, a company of Rosatom, provides navigation and hydrographic support in the water area of the Northern Sea Route including the survey of bottom relief for keeping navigation charts and guides up-to-date, for providing the Northern Sea Route waters with aids to navigation and for informing seafarers about changing navigation circumstances. The company acts as a contractor under the projects on construction and operation of new port infrastructure facilities within the Northern Sea Route.