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At Vyborg Shipyard there was held keel-laying ceremony of the lead icebreaking support vessel
Today, on November 3rd, 2015, at Vyborg Shipyard (a corporate member of the United Shipbuilding Corporation) there was held the solemn keel-laying ceremony of the lead icebreaking support vessel for «Gazprom Neft Novy Port».
The guests were welcomed by First Deputy General Director Kirill Voroshilov. He noted that «the new vessel laid down at the shipyard is multipurpose and is capable to perform many tasks while operating in harsh ice conditions. This icebreaking vessel is unique and as of today it is one-of-a-kind in the world. Vyborg Shipyard thanks the Customer for vesting confidence and is justifiably proud of the opportunity to execute this project».
The icebreaking support vessel will be built according to state-of-the-art design providing high icebreaking capability and considerable maneuverability at a rather small draught. The proposed concept of the icebreaking vessel with three thrusters (located in pair in the aft and one unit in the fore part of the vessel) provides maximized operability in harsh conditions of the intended operation area. General Director of Gazprom Neft Alexander Dyukov noted: «After the Novoportovskoye oilfield is put into operation there will be started development of the new oil and gas province in Russia. Building of large oil-producing cluster on Yamal requires the infrastructure development part of which there will become icebreakers under construction. In turn, all-the-year-round transport accessibility of the region will become an additional impulse to the region development».
The keel-laying ceremony of the vessel was also attended by Chief Engineer - Director of Classification Department of Russian Maritime Register of Shipping Vladimir Evenko. As he said, «the new vessel is being built under RS technical supervision». «Class notation Icebreaker8 is one of the highest ice categories according to RS classification system. It means that the vessel even during the most challenging operational period - winter navigation - will be capable to move forward in continuous running in continuous field ice with thickness up to 2 m and effectively complete tasks».
The vessel was given the name "Alexander Sannikov" in honour of the dearly departed Head of oil refining Directorate « Gazprom Neft». At Vyborg Shipyard by order of «Gazprom Neft» there will be built two icebreaking vessels to be operated on the Arctic terminal of the Novoportovskoye oilfield located in the west of the Gulf of Ob on the Yamal peninsula. Length of the icebreakers - 121,7 m, width - 26 m, draught - 8.0 m, capacity - 21,5 MW. Main purpose: icebreaking escorting of tankers, assistance at mooring and loading, rescue operations, towage of vessels, fire-fighting, participation in oil response operations. The vessels are designed to be operated all year round at temperatures up to -50 C. According to the contract both vessels will be delivered to «Gazprom Neft» till 2018.