Completion of Arktika nuclear icebreaker shifted to 2018 - Atomflot
MURMANSK. Dec 16 (Interfax) - The timetable of the construction of the first nuclear-propelled icebreaker of Project 22220 Arktika is being shifted, and the vessel will not be commissioned at the end of 2017, Deputy General Director and Chief Engineer of FSUE Atomflot Mustafa Kashka said to journalists on Friday.
"[The commissioning time] is shifting further to 2018," he said answering a question about the observance of the timetable of building the icebreaker.
Kashka said that the change in timing is not critical.
"The bulkhead of the ship is fully visible. A big number of mechanisms have been installed. The assembly of reactor installations has been completed. The propulsion engines will be loaded by the end of this month or at the beginning of January," he said describing the work done.
Meanwhile the leadership of Atomflot is waiting for a decision on the construction of two more icebreakers of the project. According to Kashka, this winter and the next "will clearly demonstrate the shortage of icebreakers for new tasks." Presently LLC Baltic Shipyard-Shipbuilding in St. Petersburg is building two more icebreakers of the project - Sibir and Ural.
"We are thinking when we will start on the fourth and fifth ones. So far ideas fly, but there is no decision," Kashka said.
Earlier reports said that at the beginning of September the shipbuilder loaded the first of two steam generating units of the reactor installation RITM-200 on Arktika.
RITM-2000 belongs to the main power installation of the icebreaker and consists of two steam generating units with thermal capacity of 175 MW each. Each unit weighs around 180 tonnes.
The contract for the construction of the first nuclear-propelled icebreaker of project 22220 was signed by Atomflot and the Baltic Shipyard-Shipbuilding in August 2012. It cost 37 billion rubles. The contract for the construction of the two other icebreakers of the project was signed between the Baltic Shipyard and Rosatom state corporation in May 2014. The contract price was 84.4 billion rubles.
The icebreakers of the project have length of 173.3 meters, width of 34 meters, design draught of 10.5 meters, the minimal operating draught of 8.55 meters and displacement of 33,540 tonnes.