The main direction in the development of the Northern Sea Route is to ensure the export of mineral raw materials, and the country needs a new icebreaker to fulfill this task. Implementation of investment projects in the field of extraction of mineral resources (eleven of them are associated with oil and gas, and four more are associated with the extraction of coal and ore, among which are current and promising - Norilsk, Dudinka, Novy Port, Dikson, Yamal LNG and others) requires continuous transit. And therefore, in the future, and in the nearest future, there will be an increase in the cargo flow of the Northern Sea Route, where linear icebreakers are currently operating, four of which are nuclear and four diesel-electric. They are clearly not enough, therefore, and should soon appear the most modern icebreaker-leader.
Furnishings and Tasks
In the waters of the Northern Sea Route , eight ships were said to operate: the nuclear powered Vaigach, Taimyr, Yamal and 50 years of Victory, as well as the diesel engines Kapitan Dranitsyn, Kapitan Khlebnikov, Krasin and Admiral Makarov. The port infrastructure in its development is focused entirely on the development of oil and gas fields, and the appearance of new modern ships, which is the future icebreaker-leader, is also entirely associated with mining. Such a ship with a deadweight of more than one hundred thousand tons and a width of more than fifty meters will carry out transport caravans throughout the entire sea route year-round. The speed promised by the leading icebreaker is planned to be cost-effective - about fifteen knots in the thickest ice.
Sketch design was performed by Krylovsky State Scientific Center and Iceberg Central Design Bureau. From the very beginning, the latest nuclear leader icebreaker was developed (project LK-110Ya). He is able to provide year-round navigation and escort all expeditions to the Arctic. The ship was supposed to be huge - more than two hundred meters long and about forty wide. Its power on the shafts, judging by the name of the project, was planned about 110 MW (decoding of the name: LK - icebreaker, 110 - power, I - nuclear power plant). Literally throughout the Northern Sea Route, icebreakers are needed that can overcome ice with a thickness of three and a half meters. But there was another project ahead - the LK-120MW, the hope of our Arctic fleet, and we will discuss it below.
Plans
In the western part of the Arctic, the ice is not so thick - up to three meters, and therefore icebreakers can provide navigation at any time of the year, even if they have a capacity of up to sixty megawatts. In the east, everything is different, the ice situation is completely different. And therefore, to support year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route, it is planned to extend the life of existing nuclear-powered ships (previously planned one hundred thousand hours, now one hundred and fifty). At this time, to build and put into operation a new generation of universal nuclear two-draft machines, plus an icebreaker leader (project LK-110Ya). Such plans existed until 2008, when new icebreakers were to be put into operation.
As a result, the Sibir nuclear-powered icebreaker was modernized, and the legendary Arctic born in 1972, which completely exhausted its resources, was replaced in June 2016 by a new Arctic, capable of replacing two icebreakers - both for oceanic three-meter ice and for work in riverbeds. However, launching did not mean the completion of all work. Finally, this icebreaker will be put into operation in December 2017, if everything goes according to plan. This is a very good ship and very necessary, but he is not the same leader. The peculiarity is that the nuclear leader icebreaker is able to increase ice penetration to three and a half meters. In addition, he has an increased winter speed, and therefore ship escort will be provided without violating the delivery time. Neither the season, nor weather conditions will excite the LK-110Ya icebreakers (the “leader” is the project code in this case). The development was carried out by the Iceberg Central Design Bureau and Afrikantov Design Bureau (for a nuclear installation).
How is your work going
In 2015, the world saw what a nuclear-powered icebreaker was, although only the project was ready. In December of the year marked, the Fifth International Forum was held, dedicated to the present and future of the Arctic, and the Krylov Scientific Center at its stand showed a model of the future promising ship. It was the project leader icebreaker 10510. Its capacity is planned at one hundred and twenty megawatts, and it will be built in eight or nine years. You can’t rush into this, you need infrastructure and a proper cargo fleet. In 2015, a preliminary design was completed, and in 2016 a technical one was developed. Now the design documentation is being prepared. Thanks to this work, the new icebreaker leader can be repeated in a variety of configurations.
Then in Kubink there was an international forum "Army 2016", where this model was presented once again, but already different from the original. The design project has changed its appearance quite significantly. The nuclear icebreaker of the Leader project is being developed by several companies. First of all, the Iceberg Central Design Bureau is the lead developer, and the Krylovsky State Research Center will necessarily coordinate with him each of his conceptual designs. In this case, the exterior has changed significantly. In 2017, the practical implementation of the development began.
Some characteristics
The design that the atomic icebreaker-leader (project 10510) will have is unique, it will be able to ensure the passage through the ice even of large-capacity bulk carriers and tankers, those that cannot be used by the Northern Sea Route now. In a new word, the history of shipbuilding will include the fact that the ship will not have a single identical transverse rib in the skeleton (frame), which should provide exceptional patency in the ice, which is not affordable for any icebreaker of this class. The designers calculated and found new technical solutions, thanks to which the leader icebreaker, whose layout photo is placed at the very beginning and at the very end of our review, can easily overcome not even three and a half, but all four meters of the ice thickness and even all five, laying for ships channel wider than fifty meters.
And on the “thin” ice (two meters!), It will pass without reducing speed from fourteen knots. And the capacity planned ten years ago already seems insufficient. One hundred and twenty megawatts should have at least the leading icebreaker leader, 110 MW designers already consider it quite ordinary power for such a colossus. After all, an ordinary icebreaker from the LK-60 series moves along two-meter ice at a speed of only two knots, and it can break a track no wider than thirty-six meters. The propellers on the new vessel will be made of graphene material, and they have no analogues in the world. These are unique products that are invulnerable to ice, changing shape to optimal depending on the speed of the icebreaker, which means that the vessel will not lose speed, but gain maneuverability. In the fall of 2017, studies - numerical, experimental and complex - will already be completed, and the tests passed. The ship’s autonomy is planned for eight months (the duration of sailing without calling at the port), and the service life is forty years. The lead icebreaker leader (project 10510) was planned to be commissioned in 2024.
Figures
In addition to the lead icebreaking vessel, those that were discussed at the beginning of the article continue to be developed - this is the nuclear leader icebreaker 110 MW capacity. Their displacement is 55,600 tons, the length is a maximum of 206, and the width is up to 40 meters, the side height is 20 meters, the draft is 13, and the minimum working is 11 meters. They will be equipped with three propellers. They can go through clean water at a speed of 24 knots and break the ice up to 3.5 meters thick. Such an icebreaker will need a crew of 127 people.
And for comparison: the characteristics of the leading icebreaker leader (project 105110). Displacement is much higher - 71380 tons, length 209 meters, width 47.7. The draft of this vessel is the same - 13 meters. But the reactor installation is much more powerful. There will be two reactors here - RITM-400, both with a thermal capacity of 350 MW. And the ship’s capacity, as mentioned above, is 120 MW. The icebreaker is not limited in range, the autonomy of provisions is eight months. The figures that correlate the speed of the vessel and the ice passability are interesting: with a thickness of 4.3 meters - 2 knots, and with a thickness of 2 meters - 15 knots. The width of the channel that the icebreaker is laying is 51 meters.
At the very top
Regarding the creation of such icebreakers, a resolution has already been adopted by the Russian government, where several organizations have been assigned financing issues - the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, the Ministry of Transport of Russia, the Ministry of Finance and the state corporation Rosatom. Serial construction will begin after 2020. And the preliminary design for today is ready, and the construction of 110 MW icebreakers has begun. And the leading icebreaker leader will be twice as powerful as the sixty-megawatt ones currently under construction, as Dmitry Rogozin said back in May 2015. The development stages will be overcome in the planned order: this is a technical proposal, then a preliminary design, then a technical project and, finally, a working one.
And two years later, at the end of June 2017, the International Naval Salon opened in St. Petersburg, where Alexei Rakhmanov, president of the shipbuilding corporation, talked a lot about the prospects that the construction of the icebreaker for the 10510 Leader project will bring. He also noted that the Ministry of Industry finances the project only for initial work, since the technological aspects have not yet been worked out enough. That is why the formation of a financial scheme for its construction has not yet begun. The deadlines for putting the icebreaker into operation were previously moved for another year. It was originally supposed to be done in 2023, and now it is called the 2025th.
How did this happen
The most promising type of icebreakers for the foreseeable future is seen by all experts as the Russian atomic icebreaker of project 10510 Leader, including LK-110Ya and LK-120Ya). The main task of such a vessel is to ensure year-round navigation along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route and to conduct expeditions to the Arctic. Many media noted that Rosatomflot promised to build such a vessel by 2023 in Severodvinsk or St. Petersburg, and the program for social and economic development of the Arctic zone of Russia will provide funds for this, moreover, it will finance it in the period until 2020, and in the future.
However, in April 2017, the Ministry of Economic Development intervened with a proposal for a thorough correction of this program, excluding from financing eighty billion rubles that were planned to be invested in the construction of the vessel. Perhaps this decision is understandable: not only the state should participate in such a huge project. The country has a lot of private capital, which is very profitable to create an icebreaker that opens year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route.
Naval Salon
Thanks to the International Maritime Defense Show and despite the anti-Russian sanctions, many foreign delegations were extremely attentive to the draft of the new icebreaker. Here were the commanders of the naval forces of different countries, naval ministers and a huge number of foreign industrialists, mainly European. They were very interested in the plans that are associated with our navy, and, in principle, this interest never faded from them.
The Arctic theme is generally special. All presented projects of Russian icebreakers were thoroughly studied by foreign guests, but they showed interest in the Leader icebreaker in half with amazement. The fairly large nuclear-powered icebreakers Sibir, Ural, and Arctic will be commissioned from 2019 to 2021, and they all have half the power of 60 MW. And this one is the leader, he with his one hundred and twenty megawatts will be able to rip the ice with virtually no limits - at least five meters thick.
Expert Opinions
The requirements for icebreaking vessels are increasing, and therefore the management of the fleets - both nuclear and non-nuclear - came to the need to consolidate, - this is the opinion of Russian experts. Our country, of course, has certain resources for building the strongest icebreaker fleet, and it will certainly be in full demand in the Arctic, as freight traffic is constantly growing there. However, the construction of Arctic vessels should be engaged not only at state expense. According to experts, it is necessary to develop this area and attract private investment in the construction of new icebreakers.
The volume of traffic on the NSR (Northern Sea Route) for 2016 amounted to about seven and a half million tons, and with the advent of an icebreaker that provides year-round navigation, it will grow to eighty million. By 2024, shipments promise to exceed forty million tons. The main cargo flow is oil, liquefied gas, metals, coal. Mining and processing corporations are primarily interested in the appearance of an icebreaker of this class. This promises them fabulous profits, so let them invest.
Arctic Resources
The systematic development of Arctic resources from year to year increases the flow of goods through the NSR. The era of industrial development is most associated with the study of new water areas and territories rich in resources, primarily oil and gas. This work has been going on for a very long time, and the results were the Norilsk industry, the Kola mining industry, the Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets oil and gas complexes, as well as many other large-scale facilities along the entire route from the Kola to the Chukchi Peninsula.
Already today, the Arctic accounts for eighty percent of gas production, eleven percent of oil production, ninety-five percent of nickel production and one hundred percent of apatite. It is difficult to even list all the minerals that give us these territories. The cargo flow in the Arctic is entirely connected with the export of this product, and this is many tens of millions of tons. Not only icebreakers will be needed, but also cargo ships in sufficient quantities, and of the highest classes, for example - Arc-7. And the number of icebreakers needs to be doubled at least, because all those working now are already running out of their last warranty periods.