Each guest of the ceremony was allowed to walk around the decks, look into the captain's cabin,
to the bridge, helipad and, of course, learn about fundamental differences this giant from similar ships.

Bold ideas, big plans

The start of operation of the new vessel is confirmation that the Russian oil and gas industry and its partners are making confident steps in the development of the Arctic,” said Vadim Yakovlev, First Deputy General Director of Gazprom Neft, during the presentation of the icebreaker. - The oil of the Yamal Peninsula has been inaccessible to the market for more than half a century due to the lack of efficient technologies for its production and transportation. We have selected the necessary technological keys, created a unique scheme for the export of hydrocarbons from the Novoportovskoye field: along the Ob Bay, the Northern Sea Route. But to solve this problem, modern, powerful vessels are required. And such a vessel - the icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov" - was built by our partners. Soon we will start operating another icebreaker of the same series - Andrey Vilkitsky. In addition, Gazprom Neft continues to develop the Arctic tanker fleet, build up its resource base, and increase production volumes. In the near future, the company will invest about 400 billion rubles in Yamal. What we are doing gives reason to believe that Gazprom Neft is the industry leader in the development of the Arctic. We see enormous potential in this region. We made a bet on him before others!

In the Arctic, Gazprom Neft is implementing three largest project: "New Port" and "Messoyakha" in the YaNAO, "Prirazlomnaya" - in the Pechora Sea. Shipment of Novoportovskaya oil through the Arctic Gates of the Arctic terminal, installed in the waters of the Gulf of Ob,
began in 2016, and now the field is increasing production annually.

In 2019, we plan to reach the volume of about 8 million tons of oil. In addition, Gazprom Neft received several additional license areas (geological exploration is currently underway on them). The plans include the construction of a gas pipeline from the Novoportovskoye field to Yamburg. We will invest about 75 billion rubles in this project,” added Vadim Yakovlev.

But back to the hero of these days, the icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov". According to the President of the United shipbuilding corporation Alexey Rakhmanov, the new ship is the most powerful diesel-electric icebreaker in its class, which was created at Russian shipyards. “The share of domestic content in the project is especially important: metal, materials, navigation system, navigation bridge, generators - everything is ours. A multifunctional vessel allows you to solve the most different tasks up to saving people in emergency situations. Moreover, "Alexander Sannikov" provides the correct speed of penetration in ice - this is what the customer and navigators who work in northern latitudes need," Alexey Lvovich noted.

The name of Alexander Sannikov was given to the new icebreaker not by chance. Colleagues remember this man, an employee of Gazprom Neft, with warmth. Elena Ilyukhina, Deputy General Director for Legal and Corporate Affairs of the company, said that Alexander Leonidovich was a great professional, an excellent specialist, possessing the best human qualities.

What's inside?

As emphasized CEO Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant Alexander Solovyov (this is an enterprise that is part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, and built a new icebreaker), "Alexander Sannikov" is the result of the work of thousands of people, each of whom gave their knowledge and skills to the project.

The lead icebreaking support vessel is intended for operation near the Gates of the Arctic terminal in the area of ​​the Yamal Peninsula. There is a lot of work: duty, escorting tankers to the Northern Sea Route, assistance with mooring, loading and unloading, towing ships. But this is ahead, but for now, the Alexander Sannikov is laid up not far from the Blagoveshchensky Bridge. As they say, it rests - both before the season and after recent tests in the water area Baltic Sea, during which all the equipment and mechanisms of the ship were checked, including the possibility of the power plant to work without any human participation in a 24-hour standby mode.

Alexander Kiselev, the captain of the icebreaker, is not easy to persuade for an interview - he already has a lot of worries. But still, he shared his impressions:
- I am familiar with the Arctic - I came to this region as a sailor in 1991. My experience as a captain is over 15 years. I worked on different icebreakers, but "Alexander Sannikov" exceeded all expectations, conquered, honestly. It has excellent maneuverability characteristics: due to special electric motors, it makes a full turn on the spot in a minute. The dynamic positioning system allows you to stay in one point without deviation, if necessary during any operation. And it is controlled simply - joysticks.

First Officer Sergei Shchelokov led the guests along the "floors" of the ship. Above the main deck there are boats intended for work to eliminate the consequences of emergency situations, and spare propellers for rudder propellers. Even higher is the captain's cabin. The surroundings are quite modest (nothing superfluous), but everything is certainly comfortable, pleasing to the eye. There is also an icon of Nikolai Ugodnik, the patron saint of sailors and travelers, which was presented to the team by Elena Ilyukhina, the godmother of the ship.

Let us add that both the Alexander Sannikov and Andrey Vilkitsky are designed taking into account the principle of zero discharge: solid and liquid waste will be stored on board and disposed of on shore.

At the end of July, the icebreaker with serial number 233 will go on the first working shift. As part of Gazprom Neft's Arctic Time program, he will lead tankers carrying unique oil from the Novoportovskoye field through the hard ice.

Day of the shipbuilder in St. Petersburg was marked by a raising state flag Russian Federation on the most powerful Russian-built diesel-electric icebreaker - the lead icebreaking ship project IBSV01 "Alexander Sannikov"..

The icebreaker was built specifically to work at the Arctic terminal of Gazprom Neft's Novoportovskoye field. Among the possible future tasks of the "Alexander Sannikov" are icebreaker escort of tankers, towing of ships, participation in mooring and loading operations, rescue operations.

Also, such a vessel will not be superfluous in emergency situations: when extinguishing fires and eliminating oil spills.

The construction of two multifunctional icebreaking support vessels for Gazprom Neft - Alexander Sannikov (serial number 233) and Andrey Vilkitsky (serial number 234) - began at the Vyborg Shipyard in November 2015. A year later, on November 24, 2016, Alexander Sannikov was launched.

The conceptual design of the vessel was created by the Finnish company Aker Arctic Technology. A year ago, the project, the lead ship of which was the Alexander Sannikov, was called Aker ARC 130A.

The project was then renamed to IBSV01. Apparently, in accordance with the coding of the Marine Engineering Bureau, which prepared the technical project. The working design documentation was issued by PKB "Petrobalt".

May 19, 2018 "Alexander Sannikov" left for sea ​​trials. After checking the operability of the ship's systems and equipment, as well as the compliance of the actual parameters with the design characteristics, the vessel received confirmation of readiness for transfer to the customer.

The solemn ceremony, which took place on the Angliskaya Embankment of the Neva, was attended by USC President Alexei Rakhmanov, General Director of the Vyborg Shipyard Alexander Solovyov.

Of course, in addition to shipbuilders and supervisory authorities, the ceremony could not take place without the second party - representatives of the customer. Gazprom Neft was represented by Vadim Yakovlev, First Deputy General Director, and Elena Ilyukhina, Deputy General Director for Legal and Corporate Affairs, who is also Alexander Sannikov's godmother.

Later, Alexander Dyukov, General Director of Gazprom Neft, joined the participants in the ceremony.

The hoisting of the flag was preceded by the ceremony of signing the act of acceptance and transfer of the vessel.

As Vadim Yakovlev noted during the ceremony, with the acceptance of the new icebreaker into the Gazprom Neft fleet, new stage exploration of the Arctic. Now, the keys to the resources of Yamal, which were previously inaccessible, have been "picked up."

In turn, USC President Alexei Rakhmanov recalled that "Alexander Sannikov" is on this moment the most powerful diesel-electric icebreaker built at domestic shipyards. The share of Russian "content" in the new icebreaker also exceeds all previously achieved figures.

Alexander Solovyov, General Director of the Vyborg Shipyard, noted that the ship handed over to the customer is the result of the hard work of thousands of people.

After Alexander Solovyov gave Kirill Latyshev, project manager for the construction of the ship "Alexander Sannikov", permission to raise the flag, the banner was raised by two captains: the captain of the commissioning team and the captain of the icebreaker.

The icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov" was built under the technical supervision of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping under the Icebreaker8 class.

The capacity of the IBSV01 project icebreaking vessel is 21.5 MW. With a length of 121.7 m, a width of 26 m and a draft of 8 m, the Alexander Sannikov is able to overcome solid ice up to 2 m thick at a speed of 2 knots. Moreover, moving both bow and stern.

The ceremony of raising the Russian flag on the new icebreaker took place in St. Petersburg. Alexander Sannikov opens up new prospects for year-round supplies of Arctic oil to the world market. This is the first icebreaker built under the Arctic Time program. Under the program, 6 tankers have already been launched and are in operation to transport oil from the Novoportovskoye field. The new icebreaker will begin their regular escort in July. According to Gazprom Neft forecasts, by 2030 the market demand for transportation along the Northern Sea Route will increase by a third, so the presence of a modern icebreaking and tanker fleet is essential for these transportations.

Novoportovskoye field and Novy Port

The Novoportovskoye field is one of the largest oil and gas condensate fields under development on the Yamal Peninsula. It is located 30 km from the coast of the Gulf of Ob. The recoverable reserves are more than 250 million tons of oil and condensate, as well as more than 320 billion cubic meters of gas. The field was discovered in the last century and is located in the eastern part of the Yamal Peninsula, 100 kilometers from the Gulf of Ob.

AT Soviet years there were no opportunities to transport oil from this area - for many years, only exploration work took place at Novoportovskoye. And only in the 10s of this century, technologies appeared that, in a short time, helped Gazprom Neft to make a breakthrough and be able to begin fully exploiting the field. Efficient development of the Novoportovskoye reserves required the construction of horizontal and multilateral wells, as well as the use of multi-stage hydraulic fracturing.

In 2016, Gazpromneft-Yamal extended the right to use the subsoil of the Novoportovskoye field until 2150. To date, this is the longest license term in Gazprom Neft's asset portfolio. The oil found at the Novoportovskoye field, called Novy Port, belongs to the category of light grades with a low sulfur content (about 0.1 percent). Potential consumers from the countries of Northern Europe, where plants specializing in the processing of light sweet oil, immediately became interested in this.

However, one could speak of serious contracts with Europeans only with a stable, year-round supply of fuel. Gazprom Neft, together with shipbuilding and marine engineering scientists, began to solve the ambitious task of year-round transportation of raw materials by tankers with the support of icebreakers. To this end, a 105-kilometer long pipeline was laid from the Novoportovskoye field to the coast of the Gulf of Ob, which was connected to the world's first and only oil loading terminal in fresh waters beyond the Arctic Circle.

Through the Gates of the Arctic to Europe

Gates of the Arctic is a unique remote oil loading terminal for transporting oil from the Novoportovskoye field. In fact, this is a huge crane located right in the Gulf of Ob - 3.5 kilometers from the coast. Oil is delivered there via a 10.5 km long onshore and underwater oil pipeline and then goes directly to the tanker.

A tank farm and pumping stations were built with a water hammer protection system, which guarantees the tightness of the entire system. Technology system provides "zero discharge" of any pollutants into the waters of the Gulf of Ob. The Gates of the Arctic terminal is a grandiose spectacle - it rises 80 meters above the water. The capacity of the transshipment complex is 8.6 million tons of oil per year.

Thanks to the creation of the Gates of the Arctic, the first oil from the Novoportovskoye field went to Europe along the Northern Sea Route in the summer of 2014. In 2015, winter shipments began, which were accompanied by nuclear icebreakers. But even then it became clear that it was extremely difficult to supply oil in an industrial volume from the field using the usual methods.
The Gulf of Ob is very complex hydrologically - it is shallow, the water in it is practically fresh, and given that the water area is covered with ice for 255 days a year, the thickness of the ice cover here fluctuates around two meters. Moreover, in winter time the air temperature is constantly kept at minus 50 degrees Celsius, and strong storm winds blow here.

Under such conditions, the passage of tankers is very difficult, no matter what ice class they have. Modern icebreakers are needed to cut and maintain channels through the ice that cargo ships can navigate on their own. It was for this purpose that the Alexander Sannikov was built. The Gulf of Ob and the Kara Sea will be the place of its permanent deployment - from there, tankers from the New Port leave for the Barents Sea and then go to the ports in Murmansk and Europe. Thanks to the development of this northern sea route, the geography of supplies of Novy Port oil in a few recent years managed to expand to 9 countries, including the UK, France, Norway and Holland.

Arctic Fleet of Gazprom Neft

The active development of the Novoportovskoye and Prirazlomnoye fields has increased the number of tanker refueling operations in the Arctic by almost a third. Therefore, Gazprom Neft faced the task of creating its own Arctic fleet. In 2017, by order of the company, a series of Arctic tankers were built, capable of breaking ice up to 1.8 meters thick with a draft of 9 meters and with a carrying capacity of about 35,000 tons. Naturally, there was also a need for icebreakers that could not only navigate ships through hummocks, but also constantly maintain the fairway in access mode, as well as participate in mooring and loading operations, rescue operations, towing ships, fire fighting, and oil spill response. They must be both powerful and at the same time maneuverable.

An order for the creation of two new icebreakers of the ICEBREAKER 8 class has been placed. And so, on June 29, 2018, the first of two vessels of this project, the Alexander Sannikov, was presented on the English Embankment in St. Petersburg before its first trip to the Arctic.

Secrets of the new icebreaker

Icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov" is a real floating city. On clean water, it can accelerate to 16 knots, that is, up to 25 kilometers per hour. In addition, the vessel has a low draft - up to 8 meters, which is ideal for working in shallow water where nuclear icebreakers will not pass. On the ship - a multifunctional deck with the possibility of transporting cargo containers, a fire station, a hospital, Helipad. There are also emergency boats, a powerful winch and a crane with a lifting capacity of 26 tons - the functionality of the Alexander Sannikov significantly exceeds most of its nuclear and diesel predecessors.

Video: Popcorner / YouTube

The most important design feature vessel - "Alexander Sannikov" does not push through the ice, as classic icebreakers do, but cuts it and, as it were, "mills" the ice mass. The secret of the new vessel lies in the special shape of the hull and three dynamic engines located in the stern and bow. It is this technical solution that gives Alexander Sannikov an advantage in maneuverability. If necessary, the icebreaker can turn around 360 degrees in just a minute.

A significant part of the equipment installed on the icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov" - Russian production. The Zvyozdochka Shipbuilding Center in Severodvinsk has equipped the vessel with the most modern bow thruster. Domestic manufacturers also provided the icebreaker with modern navigation equipment, navigation bridge, generators - essential elements that ensure the operation of the icebreaker.

No worse than atomic predecessors

Experts believe that today "Alexander Sannikov" is one of the most high-tech icebreakers. The vessel is built to provide up to 40 days of battery life in extreme temperatures down to minus 50 degrees. On-board computers fully regulate the life support of the icebreaker, start generators, synchronize equipment, manage emergency modes, regulate temperature and technological conditions on all decks of the ship. The digitalization of icebreaker control has increased the efficiency of the crew - to perform similar functionality on other icebreakers, a twofold increase in the number of crew is required.

With the power of its diesel engines of 22 megawatts, "Alexander Sannikov" shows an icebreaking ability comparable to nuclear icebreakers with greater power. It remains to be added that on the Alexander Sannikov all solid and liquid wastes are stored on board and disposed of on shore by special services. The sewage disposal system on the ship has a closed cycle: they are collected in a special collection tank, from which the effluents are fed to the treatment plant for cleaning and neutralization.

A big event in the truest sense of the word at the shipyard in St. Petersburg. The icebreaker "Alexander Sannikov" set off for the first Arctic voyage. It will cross the Baltic Sea and go to Yamal along the Northern Sea Route. In the Gulf of Ob, where the ice thickness reaches one and a half meters, and the air temperature drops to minus 50, a Gazprom Neft ship will escort tankers from the field to the Arctic Ocean. There have never been such high-tech diesel icebreakers in the civilian fleet.

An icebreaker is an exclusively civilian ship, but a maritime ceremony according to military canons: raising the flag, anthem, formation! It is named after a modest and talented engineer, under whose leadership the oilmen switched to the principle of the so-called "zero discharge", when any possibility of leakage of raw materials is excluded. The new icebreaker is so environmentally friendly. Before its laying, Alexander Leonidovich Sannikov did not live only three months.

No one in the world builds such icebreakers: among diesel ones, it is the most powerful - 30,000 horsepower. Replaces the whole flotilla - rescue, emergency response, evacuation vessel. And, of course, it cuts ice, not only with its armored hull, but also with its propellers.

The ship's propellers are actually a huge milling cutter taller than human height. Now they are covered with a special protective casing. The screws - two in the stern and one in the bow - rotate 360 ​​degrees. So the icebreaker can turn around on the spot, like a carousel. All this allows him to calmly crush ice up to two meters.

But that's not all: in case the icebreaker does start to freeze, another system is provided - filling the ballast tanks, the ship rolls to the right or left or back and forth, expanding the channel and splitting the ice floes in front and behind.

At the same time, thanks to automation, only 19 people manage this floating nine-story house. The captain's bridge is more like a space control center.

“This is not quite a steering wheel, these are rudder propellers that are used as a steering wheel, replacing the steering wheel. They are easy to operate and are no more difficult than a helm,” explains Alexander Kiselev, captain of the Alexander Sannikov icebreaker.

Back in the 60s, a unique deposit was found in Yamal - Novoportovskoye. Here the oil is cleaner even than the reference grades. But only half a century later they were able to develop and build a delivery scheme.

A pipeline was laid through the permafrost from the mining site to the coast of the Gulf of Ob. At Cape Kamenny, oil is poured into tankers and then they can go along the Northern Sea Route to Europe and Asia. But in this area, the river is covered with ice for nine months of the year.

“This is a very serious challenge, but we accept this challenge. Conventional fields are experiencing natural resource depletion while demand continues to grow, so the Russian Arctic and hard-to-recover reserves is the future for our oil industry. Each project will ensure the receipt of trillions of rubles in the budget,” said the Chairman of the Board, General Director of PJSC Gazprom Neft Alexander Dyukov.

The ship was laid down two years ago at the shipyard in Vyborg. Just a year later, they launched it, and now, after all the tests, "Alexander Sannikov" is setting off on his first Arctic trip. The sailors intend to travel seven and a half thousand kilometers to their place of work in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, the second icebreaker of the same series is already being prepared for the campaign at the Vyborg Shipyard. Together with Sannikov, they will provide a year-round transport corridor from Siberia to the Kara Islands.