Icebreakers

The shipyard breaks ice in batch production

The Baltic Shipyard has found a replacement for the Finnish Wartsila equipment for nuclear-powered ships

Two more nuclear-powered icebreakers to serve the Northern Sea Route will be laid down at the Baltic Shipyard as part of project 22220. The laying of the first vessel is to take place in May 2024, the second in October 2025. Previously, experts called the lack of equipment among the risks of building icebreakers. On the icebreakers under construction of a similar series - "Chukotka" and "Yakutia" - diesel generators were to be supplied by the Finnish company Wartsila. However, she left the market, taking the advance. Baltic Shipyard has found an alternative in terms of positions, including through the resumption of its own production.

Maxim Kulinko, deputy director of the Directorate of the Northern Sea Route of the state corporation Rosatom, announced the deadlines for the construction of new icebreakers in an interview with RIA Novosti. According to him, contracts for the construction of the fifth and sixth icebreakers have already been signed. Both budgetary (58.9 billion rubles) and own funds of the state corporation will be used.

Previously, among the possible risks of project 22220, experts called a change in equipment suppliers for icebreakers. In particular, the Finnish company Wartsila was supposed to provide backup diesel generators, as well as stern tube seals. But after the February events of last year, the company ceased cooperation. The shipyard filed claims ( see Kommersant-SPb dated 08/16/2022 ) for €5.1 million and intensified the search for a replacement. At the moment, suppliers are found, but they are not called.

“Alternative suppliers for most positions have been found. Separate equipment has been transferred to our own production, for example, we have resumed the production of stern tube devices,” commented the press service of the Baltic Shipyard.

As Kommersant-SPb clarified in the press service of the Baltic Shipyard, the company is doing everything possible to meet the deadlines for the construction and commissioning of the Yakutia and Chukotka nuclear icebreakers in accordance with the general construction schedule. “Of course, there are always risks, but at the moment they are minimal,” the press service added. In addition to the designated nuclear-powered ships, the shipyard's portfolio of orders includes two more modernized floating power units (MPEP) of project 20871.

According to Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of the Infoline-Analytics agency, Wartsila equipment is replaceable. But to name a supplier in terms of some positions means to have the risk of bringing him under sanctions. “Baltic Plant will cope with the task on time with stable funding that Rosatom can provide. Moreover, now the most effective tool to provide the Northern Sea Route with icebreaking assistance is the continuation of the serial construction of project 22220. Since the previously designated leader in this area - the SSK Zvezda shipyard - is experiencing financial, personnel problems and difficulties with the supply of ship components, the analyst explains.

The stability of the functioning of the Baltic Shipyard is also evidenced by the expansion of its staff, says Associate Professor of the Basic Department of Financial Control, Analysis and Audit of the Main Control Directorate of Moscow of the Russian University of Economics. Plekhanova Olga Tarasova. “If in 2012, when the first contracts for the construction of icebreakers of the new series were signed, the company employed 1,200 people, today their number is 6,000. As you know, new icebreakers have a long design life of more than 40 years, and their commissioning will allow "Rosatom" to effectively serve the functioning of the Northern Sea Route. In addition, the more than urgent problem of replacing existing icebreakers will be solved and, thereby, the interests of a number of backbone companies operating in the Arctic (such as NOVATEK, Vostok-Oil, Baimsky GOK) will be secured”,

“Given that the laying of icebreakers will take place only in 2024 and 2025, it is unlikely that the risks are significant. For example, project financing is planned from several sources, that is, problems with funds are unlikely to arise. There is also time to search for various equipment, there is still a lot of time before equipping icebreakers, and products can be supplied by both domestic companies and equipment manufacturers from friendly countries. The country is implementing the federal project "Northern Sea Route", which is part of the transport part of the Comprehensive Plan for the Modernization and Expansion of the Main Infrastructure until 2024. The task was set to transport 80 million tons of cargo along the Northern Sea Route by 2024, and up to 130 million tons by 2035, so icebreakers will definitely be needed to increase traffic.

Problems with the construction of the lead nuclear icebreaker "Russia" project 10510

As the Kommersant newspaper reported in an article by Tatyana Dyatel and Dmitry Kozlov, Rossiya does not give up. The price and timing of the production of a nuclear icebreaker may change", the cost of building a super-powerful lead nuclear icebreaker "Russia" of project 10510 (LK-120Ya, code "Leader"), which previously amounted to 128 billion rubles, may increase by 40-60%, and the construction time - move to the right. It is assumed that the icebreaker required for regular year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route should be built at the Zvezda shipyard in 2027. According to Kommersant's sources, there are already backlogs in the production of large hull castings, the cost and timing of work on the production of individual parts of the icebreaker's nuclear power plant are growing.

The cost of the state contract for the construction of the lead nuclear icebreaker "Russia" of project 10510 "Leader" may increase, and the deadlines for the delivery of the vessel for some hull work at the Zvezda shipyard (managed by a consortium of Rosneft, Rosneftegaz and Gazprombank) are already behind schedule, follows from the minutes of the meeting with the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Viktor Yevtukhov dated March 13 (Kommersant has it). According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, who are familiar with the course of the discussion of the issue, we can talk about increasing the cost of the state contract by 40-60%.

State contract worth 127.6 billion rubles. for the construction of the lead nuclear icebreaker Rossiyawas concluded in April 2020, its customer is Atomflot, the completion date is December 2027. An icebreaker with a capacity of 120 MW should provide year-round escort of vessels along the Northern Sea Route at a commercial speed of 10–12 knots for the export of hydrocarbons to foreign markets. First of all, the icebreaker should ensure year-round export of LNG from NOVATEK's Arctic projects in Yamal and Gydan.

Until the end of April, Rosatom, based on Rosneft data, must submit a report to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the increase in the cost and timing of work. At the same time, as follows from the protocol, Deputy Minister Yevtukhov emphasized "the impossibility of disrupting the deadline for delivery." The question of the need to postpone the deadline, according to Kommersant, has already been brought to the attention of Vladimir Putin. The office of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Kommersant that the issue had not yet been discussed in the government. Rosneft declined to comment.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to Kommersant that the issue of time and cost was discussed at the meeting, and said that "only based on the results of the examination, if necessary, it will be possible to reasonably talk about an objective increase in the time and cost of construction."

Rosneft, according to the minutes of the meeting, explains the need to increase the cost and postpone the deadlines by disrupting the supply of large body castings - an ice tooth, rudder blade brackets and outer propeller shaft brackets, which the Ukrainian plant Energomashspetsstal was supposed to supply to Zvezda during 2022, located in Kramatorsk (destruction of the industrial premises of the plant was reported as a result of hostilities in Ukraine).

The contract with the new manufacturer - UZTM-KARTEX - has not yet been concluded, and the delivery dates for these castings have been tentatively postponed to August 2025.

The cost of contracts for the supply of a nuclear power plant (NPP) of the Rossiya icebreaker may increase by 12% (up to 44 billion rubles), which includes steam turbine units (STU) of Power Machines, reactor plant RITM-400 of Atomenergomash. Thus, the contract with Power Machines increased in price by 65%, to 9.48 billion rubles, the delivery dates were postponed by eight to ten months - to the end of 2025.

Rosatom told Kommersant that Atomenergomash is producing RITM-400 within the contract period. Power Machines confirmed to Kommersant the production of vocational schools within the contract period - 2025. The justification for a significant increase in the prices of purchased materials and components for vocational schools (including Rosatom enterprises) was considered by the commission of the customer and confirmed, they said.

The untimely delivery of the components of the nuclear power plant may delay the formation of the central part of the hull, in particular the engine rooms, of Rossiya and shift the overall schedule for the construction of the vessel, says a Kommersant source close to Rosneft.

According to Kommersant's interlocutors, there is a backlog in the work on the part of Zvezda itself: in order to reduce it, the shipyard needs to attract more workers for hull and welding work on the icebreaker.

By mid-March, instead of 15% of the total planned work, only 5% had been completed. “If the speed of hull work is not increased by a multiple, then the components of the nuclear power plant will hardly be needed in 2025,” Kommersant’s interlocutors remark.

The construction of a nuclear icebreaker is the first experience of the Zvezda shipyard, says Mikhail Grigoriev, head of the Gekon consulting center. “Without an idea of ​​the timing of the implementation of individual stages of construction, the possibility of parallel work on other nodes of the icebreaker, it is difficult to say how critical this delay is for its delivery,” he notes.

As for year-round navigation on the Northern Sea Route, it primarily relates to the operation of gas carriers of NOVATEK projects, since, according to the rules of navigation in the waters of the Northern Sea Route 2022, only vessels of the Arctic ice class Arc7 and above can sail year-round in heavy ice conditions, even under the guidance of an icebreaker. . Only NOVATEK, apart from Norilsk Nickel, has vessels of the required ice class. LNG carriers being built for NOVATEK’s second project, Arctic LNG 2, on Zvezda in partnership with South Korean Samsung Heavy Industries have improved ice-breaking ability, while those built on DSME have even more power. “This suggests that year-round navigation in the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route can be started without waiting for the commissioning of the Leader icebreaker,” Mr. Grigoriev believes.

Aleksey Likhachev, Director General of the State Corporation, said that when choosing the names, Rosatom remained true to the traditions of naming the icebreakers of Rosatomflot and relied on the opinion of the captains of nuclear-powered ships.

Historically, the names of nuclear icebreakers were chosen from the geographical names of the objects of the Northern Sea Route or repeated the names of the legendary Soviet nuclear icebreakers, for example, Arktika , he noted. – Now we are expanding our borders to the so-called Great Northern Sea Route, which connects the western part of the country with the Far East. This unified logistics space of Russia opens up access to the borders of the Asia-Pacific region for us .

The laying of the nuclear-powered icebreaker Kamchatka is scheduled for May 2024, and the icebreaker Sakhalin is scheduled for autumn 2025.

The ships will be built at the Baltic Shipyard . Currently, the enterprise is building nuclear icebreakers "Chukotka" and "Yakutia". The previously built icebreakers Arktika, Sibir and Ural are already on duty on the Northern Sea Route.

Reactors need cold sea water for cooling but when the temperature gets too high it can make the water too warm for safe operations, although the threshold varies depending on the reactor type and age. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nordics-nuclearpower-explainer-idUSKBN1KM4ZR

GarryB wrote:Why do you think they would not be able to cross the Equator?

The only ships I have ever heard of that were not able to sail in warm waters because of engine overheating problems was with the new UK destroyers which were designed for operations in the North Sea and Arctic and broke down in the Med when the water temperatures got too high for its engine cooling system.

Have not heard of that happening with any other type of ship though.

Why was a Ukrainian company contracted in 2020? was that not a bad risk since 2014?

Its quite common. all ships have heat exchangers. Quite common for some ships designed for the atlantic to have to slow down in certain warm conditions.