MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. The United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) expects to become a supplier of the first, second or third level within the framework of the Lider nuclear-powered icebreaker project, which will be built at the Zvezda shipyard, the company’s President Alexey Rakhmanov said in an interview with Rossiya 24 TV channel.

"We hope that when it comes to the start of construction, we will see ourselves among either the suppliers of the first, maybe the second, or maybe even the third level," he said.

Rakhmanov said earlier that USC expected to work in cooperation with Rosneft to build Lider icebreakers.

It was reported earlier that Rosatom expects to put three Lider-class icebreakers into operation by 2033, according to the government’s plan of developing the Northern Sea Route’s infrastructure through 2035. The document stipulates that the lead icebreaker of this Project is scheduled to enter service in December 2027 and the first and second serial-produced icebreakers in December 2030 and December 2032, respectively.

The 120 MW icebreaker Lider is expected to become the world’s first vessel to lead ships along the Northern Sea Route all year round through an ice of up to 4 meters thick. Rosatom Chief Alexei Likhachev earlier told TASS that the civilian nuclear power corporation estimated the construction of the first next-generation nuclear-powered icebreaker Lider at 120 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in 2019 prices.

Likhachev also said that the lead icebreaker Lider would be built using federal budget funds. Rosatom has proposed building Lider-class serial-produced icebreakers under a mixed financing scheme, with 50% of the work to be financed by the federal government and the other 50% by the corporation through its own funds or borrowings. Later, it was reported that Rosatom was in talks with the Finance Ministry on the possibility of building Lider-class serial-produced icebreakers under concession agreements.