Fleet of ice-breaking carriers propel Russia’s Arctic LNG ambitions

Propulsion for each of the new LNG carriers will comprise three ABB Azipods with a total capacity of 51 MW – comparable to that of the nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy, which has propulsive power of 55 MW.

Flying the Russian flag and crewed by Russian seafarers, the three new LNG carriers, Hulls 2514-2516, will be delivered from February 2023 to July 2023.
The time charter agreements over the 30-year charter period will generate US$4.2Bn, said Mr Tonkovidov, pushing SCF’s total contract backlog to about US$24Bn.

“A shorter voyage optimises logistics and reduces the carbon footprint”

With the latest order, SCF’s fleet of gas carriers will grow to 34 vessels – 15 in operation and 19 under construction.

Previously, 15 icebreaking LNG carriers for the Arctic LNG 2 project were ordered from Russia’s Zvezda Shipbuilding. SCF will own the lead vessel in the series and is a joint venture partner with Novatek in Smart LNG, the owner of the other 14 LNG vessels. South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) is Zvezda’s technology partner. To be delivered between March 2023 and December 2025, these vessels, Hulls 041-055, will be the first ice-breaking LNG carriers ever built in Russia, and time chartered to Novatek.
Mark III containment technology

All 15 of ships being built by Zvezda will have GTT’s Mark III membrane containment technology. In October, Zvezda ordered tank designs from GTT for 10 LNG carriers, each of which will have an overall length of 300 m, beam of 48.8 m, depth of 26 m, with a capacity of 172,600 m³.

In July, GTT secured the order for the tank designs for the first five vessels in the series. This award was the first under a technical assistance and license agreement GTT signed with Zvezda, allowing the shipyard to construct the membrane technologies developed by the French company. A cryogenic membrane technology, Mark III technology has a distinctive design featuring a combination of a stainless steel membrane and polyurethane foam insulation.

GTT’s Mark III technology has received the General Approval for Ship Application (GASA) from the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS).
Under the GASA procedure, RS, in close cooperation with GTT, reviewed over 70 documents covering membrane tanks design, construction, and service aspects against applicable RS Rules and the IGC Code requirements. RS reviewed the basic methodology for Mark III cargo containment system strength calculations and sloshing loads estimations, as well as the testing and repair procedures for structural elements.
RS says the GASA ensures a smooth transition from conceptual LNG ship design to detailed design and class approval.
LNG FSU transhipment hubs

To further lower transportation costs and speed deliveries of LNG cargoes via the NSR to Europe and Asia, Novatek has signed contracts worth US$748M with DSME to construct two 360,000-m³ LNG barges that will serve as floating storage units (FSU) and transhipment hubs for Russian LNG.

Delivery of the two FSUs is scheduled for H2 2022, and the shipbuilding contract contains options to construct two additional LNG FSUs.
Each LNG FSU would serve as a floating LNG storage terminal, receiving and storing cargoes transported by icebreaking Arc7-class LNG carriers from Russian LNG projects in the Arctic. Those cargoes would be offloaded to conventional LNG carriers for transhipment to Europe or Asia. One FSU would be moored in the Murmansk in north-western Russia in the Barents Sea and the other in Kamchatka, located in the Russian Far East, where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Okhotsk.