MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. The Taimyr nuclear-powered icebreaker (owned by Rosatom’s Atomflot) on Wednesday left the Kara Gates, separating Novaya Zemlya from the mainland, and entered the Northern Sea Route ready to escort vessels there, Atomflot told TASS.

The Taimyr is a shallow-draft nuclear-powered icebreaker, which takes vessels into estuaries of Siberian rivers. The icebreaker can crash ice of up to 2 meters thick. If the ice is 1.77m, the icebreaker’s speed is 2 knots. The Taimyr works at air temperatures up to minus 50 degrees.

The Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) earlier reported its regular oil products supplies to the Taimyr Peninsula would continue in winter. For the supplies along the Northern Sea Route, the company would use the Yenisei ice-class tankers and other vessels, escorted by icebreakers. Rosatom and Nornickel signed an agreement on icebreaker services in 2018, and in 2021 the deal was extended to 2030. Additionally, Rosatom extends terms of icebreaker services: formerly, the Taimyr/Vaigach type icebreakers worked on the Northern Sea Route from January to May, and under the new agreement the term is from November to May.

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the main sea line in the Russian Arctic sector. It stretches along northern coasts of Russia across the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering seas). The route consolidates European and Far Eastern ports of Russia and navigable river mouths in Siberia into a single transport system. The route’s length is 5,600 km from the Kara Strait to the Providence Bay.