Russia Allocates $1bn For Massive Nuclear Icebreaker, Paving Way For Year-Round Arctic Shipping

Russia’s draft federal budget includes substantial funding of nearly $1bn over three years to complete construction of the country’s flagship nuclear icebreaker. 

The vessel, expected to be called Rossiya, will be the lead and possibly only ship of the Leader-class. It will be twice as powerful as any previous nuclear icebreaker supported by a 120 MW power plant. 

Rossiya will be instrumental to conducting year-round shipping across the Arctic. With a beam of 48 meters the vessel is designed to open up wide-enough channels in the ice to convoy LNG carriers and oil tankers across the most difficult sections of Russia’s Northern Sea Route in the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas. With China’s recent efforts to establish regular container shipping via the Arctic it may eventually also escort a fleet of box cargo ships. 

The 69,700 ton vessel will be powered by two RITM-400 reactors enabling it to break through up to 4 meter-thick ice, almost twice as much as nuclear icebreakers of the current Arktika-class.

Construction on the ship started at the Zvezda shipyard in July 2020, but had recently been plagued by slowing progress and delays. Earlier this year the delivery date was pushed back from 2027 to 2030. Currently around 15-20 percent of the vessel has been completed.  

The planned allocation of 90 billion rubles, spread roughly evenly across the years 2025, 2026, and 2027, represents a significant boost for the project.

With European markets increasingly off limits to Russian oil and LNG following Western sanctions, the Leader icebreaker will be indispensable to export resources to Asia, especially China, during the winter months.

In total Atomflot, operator of Russia’s main icebreaker fleet, plans to dispatch 17 icebreakers to the Northern Sea Route by 2030, thirteen nuclear and four new conventional, to keep the shipping lane open year round. Currently Atomflot has 7 nuclear icebreakers in service, with 4 more under construction and one ordered. 

The company plans to use non-nuclear icebreakers in the less challenging bays of the Ob and Yenisey Rivers freeing up all nuclear capacity to work in the more demanding eastern sectors.
 
Despite rapid melting of sea ice during the summer, conditions will remain very difficult during the winter months for decades to come. Seasonal variation also represents a challenge to commercial shipping. An unusually early return of the ice this fall has vessels scrambling to complete their journeys before parts of the route will close in the coming days.

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