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PM Medvedev instructs to work out providing Novatek with 4 icebreakers by 2023

The results of the work must be reported to the government before March 1, 2019
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Astakhov/Russian Government Press Office/TASS
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
© Dmitry Astakhov/Russian Government Press Office/TASS

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev instructed the Ministry of Industry and Trade, together with the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Zvezda Shipyard and Rosatom, to work out providing Novatek with four gas-engine-powered icebreakers to be commissioned in 2023.

According to documents from the meeting on the development of the Arctic, the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia, together with the United Shipbuilding Corporation, Zvezda Shipyard, state corporation Rosatom and Novatek, was instructed to "work out the issue of building 4 icebreakers on gas engine fuel, taking into account commissioning them before 2023".

The results must be reported to the government before March 1, 2019.

Kommersant wrote earlier that the main bidders for orders were the assets of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) and Rosneft’s Zvezda Shipyard. The newspaper’s sources said that the enterprises will have difficulties with the construction time, since vessels will be needed in the next project of Novatek - Arctic LNG 2 in 2023. At the same time, Head of Rosneft Igor Sechin promised in September to introduce dry dock at Zvezda shipyard in the Far East in 2020, three years ahead of schedule, which would allow the shipyard to build gas carriers, including the ones for the Arctic LNG 2.