Rosnefteflot, a subsidiary of Russia’s petroleum company Rosneft, has inked agreements with compatriot Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex for construction of ten Arctic shuttle tankers.
At the same time, Rosnefteflot and Taimyrneftegaz signed an agreement for 20-year time chartering of the 42,000 DWT tankers.
The new shuttle tankers will feature ARC7 ice class, which means that they will be designed for operations in the conditions with ice thickness up to 1.8 m and a temperature of down to 45 degrees.
Rosneft said that the new series of tankers would be used for transportation of crude produced at Paiyakhskoe field from the mouth of Enisey river along the Northern Sea Route both in the western and eastern directions.
The vessels will be built under the supervision of the Russian Maritime Register and will be operated under the flag of the Russian Federation. Phased delivery of tankers to the customer is planned to start from 2023.
“The project implementation will support development of the shipbuilding and industrial cluster and localization of production of vessel equipment in the Far East of Russia, it will ensure creation of capability for designing of Arctic shuttle tankers in the Russian Federation and development of an optimum order book for loading of Zvezda shipbuilding complex,” Rosneft said.
As informed, the order is the largest series order for ice class ships in the history of the Russian shipyards.
Rosneft announced in September that is signed an agreement of intent with the shipyard that envisages placing orders with Zvezda Shipbuilding for shuttle tankers of Arc6-Arc7 ice class and 70,000 deadweight tons.
Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex is being created on the basis of the Zvezda Far Eastern Shipyard by a consortium comprising Rosneftegaz, Rosneft and Gazprombank.
The initial workload of the shipyard is secured by Rosneft, which signed an exclusive agreement with the shipyard on placing orders for new vessels and related marine equipment.
Once completed in 2018, the complex is planned to be able to construct tankers with a displacement of up to 350,000, DWT LNG carriers up to 250,000 cbm, ice class vessels, specialized vessels with a launch weight up to 29,000 tons, offshore platform units, and other types of ships.