Russian Civil Shipbuilding Sector

This was not even in the USSR: a new supershipyard will appear in St. Petersburg

The President of the Russian Federation instructed the Rosatom corporation to work out the issue of creating a new shipyard in St. Petersburg. In terms of scale, it should not be inferior to the Zvezda shipbuilding complex. This means that enormous efforts and resources will be invested in its construction.

Why did Russia need another supershipyard? What are the costs of its construction? And when a new shipyard appears in Russia, which is not inferior to the best world analogues or surpasses them, we will tell further.

In the new realities, the construction of a supershipyard has become an urgent need. The fact is that the only shipbuilding complex Zvezda is loaded with orders until 2029. The shipyard builds gas carriers for Novatek, tankers for Rosneft, and nuclear icebreakers for Rosatom.

The new supershipyard is also necessary for the creation of large-capacity vessels. Russia intends to increase the volume of traffic along the Northern Sea Route. To do this, the country needs new icebreakers, tankers, gas carriers and container ships.

“The experts we engaged, and our specialists, our partners, come to the conclusion that a new shipyard for large-tonnage shipbuilding is necessary, including due to the historical limitations of the Baltic Shipyard,” said Alexei Likhachev, head of the Rosatom state corporation.
Currently, half of Russian oil is transported by ships registered in Greece. In case of refusal to transport Russian oil by Western logistics companies, it is necessary to quickly increase the volume of our own merchant fleet. Transport problems may also arise for non-commodity exporters.

According to the governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov, the new shipyard will allow the construction of ships up to 320 meters long and with a displacement of up to 40,000 tons.

It is planned to build gas carriers, oil tankers, offshore platforms at the shipyard.

According to preliminary calculations by the Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia, the cost of building a supershipyard is estimated at 200 billion rubles. The same amount was spent on the construction of the Zvezda shipyard in Primorsky Krai.

The shipyard project in St. Petersburg has already been developed. The project is planned to be built within 3 years. It will be the second shipyard of this class in Russia after the Zvezda shipbuilding complex.

We have previously said that in the development of industry and technology, the Russian state will rely on state corporations, and not on ministries and officials. Since the former represent an alternative to the executive power of a through tool, where orders, bypassing all the high offices of officials, immediately get to the direct executors.

Do you support such a decision of the state?

caveat emptor wrote:Something is wrong with that displacement number. It is too low for the size of ships they talk about. I hate when journalist write about subjects they don't understand.
According to article max size of the ship will be, for tankers, in VLCC category which has a deadweight of approx 300+ thousand tons. Displacement is then calculated as deadweight+lightweight. Most likely max displacement number is 400000 tons or order of magnitude larger than what article claims.

caveat emptor wrote:
Nothing serious can go on that waterway. Only river-sea class barges.

caveat emptor wrote:

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:
Had an enlargement of this  waterway ever been proposed?

I'm not sure. But, to pass through the channel ships of tonnage they will build there you'll need, at least, 15 meter draft. I'm not sure how financially feasible is that. Basically, they'll need to  build a Panama canal type waterway.

In my opinion, building a new shipyard at Kotlin island is not a wise decision. Instead of spending all this money on building a shipyard from scratch, they should spend it on upgrading the existing shipyards they have, specially Zvezda and Baltic, in order to increase their capacity. These shipyards can build any kind and size of ships.

Boost to Russian marine reactor manufacturing
23 December 2022

The Baltic Shipyard, which builds Russia's nuclear powered icebreakers, is investing in a 50% increase of its capacity to build the vessels as well as floating nuclear power plants.

The head of the shipyard, Alexey Rakhmanov, announced the move in a Maritime Board meeting chaired by Denis Manturov, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade.
 
"I signed an order to create a full-fledged second shift to work at the Baltic Shipyard, with an investment of about RUB6 billion (USD 84.7 million) in equipment and infrastructure," said Rakhmanov, noting this supports Russia's 'Maritime Doctrine'.

This policy set includes as a priority the development of the Northern Sea Route, by which cargo vessels can travel through Arctic waters from northern Europe to east Asia. Traffic on the route has increased by a factor of ten since 2012 and facilitating year-round passage is the prime mission of Russia's nuclear icebreaker fleet.
 
Rakhmanov said: "We will be able to increase the production capacity of the Baltic Shipyard by 50%."
 
As well as icebreakers, the capacity will also be used to build barges for floating nuclear power plants to power the development of Arctic ports. One example is the Cape Nagloynyn development at which four floating plants with two small reactors each will power a new port as well as the Baimskaya copper and gold mine. Short deadlines and a lack of a capacity at Russian shipyards mean those barges are being built in China.
 
The Chukotka icebreaker is currently under construction at the Baltic Shipyard while the fleet operator Atomflot, which is a subsidiary of Rosatom, is expected to order two more.