Wednesday, January 10, 2018

On Murmansk's Waterfront, New Infrastructure for the World’s Largest Icebreakers in the Making

Following up on January 5's "Russia Official Announces Plans to Build Space Age Nuclear Icebreakers".
Here is the latest Sea Ice Thickness map from the Danish Meteorological Institute:
It's the 3 metre (10 foot) thick ice along the right side of the map, Russia's Northern Sea Route, that the icebreakers under construction  are meant to deal with, while the planned (2022) "looks-like-an-oligarch's-yacht" models are being designed for up to 5 metre (16.4 foot) thick ice.

From The Independent Barents Observer:

State nuclear power company Rosatom invests big sums in the construction of a new dry dock and reactor repair complex.
As the building of Russia’s new fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers proceeds in the Baltic Yard outside St.Petersburg, the fleet operators in Murmansk are preparing for the coming of new vessels.
The LK-60 icebreakers will all be part of the Atomflot base near downtown Murmansk. The first of the ships, the «Aktika» is due to be completed in May 2019. The «Sibir» and «Ural» will follow in 2020 and 2021 respectively. They will all be operated by Rosatomflot, the subsidiary of Rosatom. In December, leader of Rosatomflot Vyacheslav Ruksha hinted that another two vessels of the kind would be needed.

With the ships comes a set of new requirement for local infrastructure in the Kola Bay. Currently, Rosatom does not have its own dry dock for repair works and is forced to use a dock located very close to the city center.

That will soon come to an end. A new docking facility for repair of the propeller and steering systems of the new icebreakers is under construction. Representatives of Rosatomflot in mid-December paid a visit to the new facility which has a price tag of 500 million rubles (€7,3 million), the company informs.

In addition, a special 1,5 billion rubles (€21.9 million) reactor reloading complex with equipment is under planning, company representative Nikolay Mantula says. It is the Afrikantov Design Bureau which is leading the development of the complex, which ultimately will enable Rosatom to repair and maintain the new RITM-200 reactors....MORE