Low oil adds to Northern Sea Route woes, Russia shelves icebreaker plans
RUSSIA has de-prioritised its big icebreaker building scheme designed to facilitate expected growth of the Arctic Northern Sea Route (NSR) from Asia.
The strained Russian economy no longer allows for major investments in new icebreakers, reported the Independent Barents Observer, Kirkenes, Norway.
What's more transit traffic volume decreased from a peak of 1.3 million tonnes in 2013 to less than 40,000 tonnes in 2015, according to the NSR Administration.
Russia was in the process of unfolding a major icebreaker programme, which includes both nuclear-powered and conventional diesel-engine vessels.
The jewel in the programme is the LK-60 (project 22220) icebreaker, which will be able to ship through three metre thick ice. At least two LK-60 vessels are planned built, the first one of them, the Arktika, is to be ready for service in 2019.
Russia was also building the world's biggest diesel-engine icebreakers, the LK-25 (project 22600). The first vessel of the kind, named "Viktor Chernomyrdin," is built for the Russian state company Rosmorport and is significantly behind schedule.
Separately, the Russian nuclear-powered 1,398-TEU Sevmorput is set to sail the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk near the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, reports the High North News, of Bodo, Norway.
Apart from the usual difficulties with changing ice conditions on the Northern Sea Route, the low price of oil makes fuel savings less of a reason to chose the shorter route. And, of course, less interest in oil exploration.
The 61,000-dwt Sevmorput is expected to check the feasibility of utilising the route. So far, it's undecided whether it will complete the voyage from mid-July to early September.
The ship, the only successful vessel civilian nuclear vessel, was constructed at the Zaliv shipyard in Ukraine between 1982 and 1988, served in both international and domestic Soviet and Russian waters, primarily sailing between Murmansk and Dudinka along the Yenisey River.
The Sevmorput's reactivation follows nearly a decade of inactivity and the ship lay moored in the Atomflot base outside Murmansk from January 2007 until December 2013.
It was about to be scrapped after it was struck from the Russian ship registry in 2012. Plans for its rehabilitation were first announced in 2013 and after a two-year process of retrofitting and refueling the reactor, extending its operational lifetime by 15 years, it left port for the first time in nearly nine years in November to conduct sea trials in the Barents Sea.
RUSSIA has de-prioritised its big icebreaker building scheme designed to facilitate expected growth of the Arctic Northern Sea Route (NSR) from Asia.
The strained Russian economy no longer allows for major investments in new icebreakers, reported the Independent Barents Observer, Kirkenes, Norway.
What's more transit traffic volume decreased from a peak of 1.3 million tonnes in 2013 to less than 40,000 tonnes in 2015, according to the NSR Administration.
Russia was in the process of unfolding a major icebreaker programme, which includes both nuclear-powered and conventional diesel-engine vessels.
The jewel in the programme is the LK-60 (project 22220) icebreaker, which will be able to ship through three metre thick ice. At least two LK-60 vessels are planned built, the first one of them, the Arktika, is to be ready for service in 2019.
Russia was also building the world's biggest diesel-engine icebreakers, the LK-25 (project 22600). The first vessel of the kind, named "Viktor Chernomyrdin," is built for the Russian state company Rosmorport and is significantly behind schedule.
Separately, the Russian nuclear-powered 1,398-TEU Sevmorput is set to sail the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to Petropavlovsk near the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East, reports the High North News, of Bodo, Norway.
Apart from the usual difficulties with changing ice conditions on the Northern Sea Route, the low price of oil makes fuel savings less of a reason to chose the shorter route. And, of course, less interest in oil exploration.
The 61,000-dwt Sevmorput is expected to check the feasibility of utilising the route. So far, it's undecided whether it will complete the voyage from mid-July to early September.
The ship, the only successful vessel civilian nuclear vessel, was constructed at the Zaliv shipyard in Ukraine between 1982 and 1988, served in both international and domestic Soviet and Russian waters, primarily sailing between Murmansk and Dudinka along the Yenisey River.
The Sevmorput's reactivation follows nearly a decade of inactivity and the ship lay moored in the Atomflot base outside Murmansk from January 2007 until December 2013.
It was about to be scrapped after it was struck from the Russian ship registry in 2012. Plans for its rehabilitation were first announced in 2013 and after a two-year process of retrofitting and refueling the reactor, extending its operational lifetime by 15 years, it left port for the first time in nearly nine years in November to conduct sea trials in the Barents Sea.