As reported by the newspaper "Kommersant" in the material Anastasia Vedeneeva "Siberia" was not immediately built. The delivery of the nuclear icebreaker has been postponed from August to December", the first serial nuclear icebreaker "Siberia" of project 22220 (LK-60YA) will not be delivered in August, the new deadline is December. The United Shipbuilding Corporation blames the delay on the slow adjustment of project documentation for the construction of the lead icebreaker, the low pace of electrical installation work and the backlog in the supply of steam turbine units. According to Kommersant, the Baltzavod is preparing to conduct a physical start-up of the Sibir reactors in the summer, and in November to go on sea trials. But sources of" Kommersant " consider these terms too optimistic.
Two linear nuclear icebreakers of the project 22220 (LK-60YA) are being completed at the wall of JSC "Baltic Plant" (St. Petersburg)-in front of the "Ural", behind it "Siberia". 24.02.2021 (c) VKontakte / vk.com/piterhi
The deadline for the delivery of the second nuclear icebreaker "Siberia" with a capacity of 60 MW, which is being built at the Baltzavod, part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), is again being disrupted. The first production vessel will be delivered not in August, but in December, sources familiar with the situation told Kommersant.
The USC "Kommersant" confirmed that they expect the delivery of "Siberia" this year, "most likely in December." The technical readiness of the vessel is 86.59%.
"The remaining deadlines for the completion of construction are regulated more by the technological sequence, which cannot be compensated by increasing the number of employees involved," the corporation explained.
As noted in the USC, during the construction process, they faced a number of problems: a low rate of adjustment of the working design documentation based on the results of the construction of the lead icebreaker, an unsatisfactory pace of electrical installation work. Also, the corporation explained, the accumulated backlog in the supply and installation of steam turbine units (three months relative to the last set deadlines) affected, which it was not possible to fully catch up.
The USC clarified that the duration of the ice tests is tied to the presence of ice with certain characteristics, usually it is April-May, and "this is standard practice in contracts for the construction of icebreakers."
Rosatom declined to comment. The Ministry of Industry and Trade did not provide a comment at the time of publication. Contract for the construction of nuclear icebreakers "Siberia" and "Ural" for 84.4 billion rubles. it was signed in 2014, and the budget allocated the money. The icebreakers are considered the first and second in the series, the construction of the main "Arctic" began in August 2012, and the deadlines for its delivery were repeatedly postponed. Initially, the "Arctic" was supposed to pass in 2017, and "Siberia" and "Ural" - in 2019 and 2020, respectively. But in the end, by the decision of the President of the Russian Federation, the terms were postponed for two years. The lead icebreaker was handed over only on October 21, 2020, in August 2021, it is planned to replace the failed propeller motor (see "Kommersant" of June 15, 2020). In addition to these nuclear-powered icebreakers, in August 2019, USC signed a contract for two more similar vessels - the Yakutia and Chukotka.
The fact that the Baltzavod does not meet the deadline for the delivery of "Siberia", sources of "Kommersant" said back in 2020, but this was denied in an interview by the head of USC Alexey Rakhmanov (see "Kommersant" of December 22, 2020). At the same time, he noted that there is a problem with the electrical installation and the work of the contractor - the SNEM company. As noted in the USC, concerns about the failure of deadlines with the delivery of the " Ural ""is not observed". "The fact that we have installed a very large amount of equipment on the slipway has a positive effect, although the failure of the terms of the technical equipment also affects, but now they are loaded, and work is actively underway in the turbine compartment," the corporation concluded.
Sources of "Kommersant" say that the plant works in three shifts in order to conduct a physical start-up of the "Siberia" reactors in the summer, and in November to go to sea for sea trials.
At the same time, a number of interlocutors believe that even these terms look extremely optimistic, and fear that the delivery will move to 2022.
The head of the consulting center "Gekon" Mikhail Grigoriev says that the delay in the commissioning of "Siberia" until December is not critical. To work on projects in the Kara Sea in recent years, the grouping of linear icebreakers is formed in December-January-in the autumn of 2021, it will consist of five nuclear and two diesel icebreakers, the expert specifies. At the same time, at the end of the summer-autumn navigation (October-November), icebreakers carry out single ship postings in the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route, including transit ones, he adds. The question of whether there will be enough icebreakers depends on the real growth of cargo deliveries for the Vostok Oil (Rosneft) and Syradasaysky Coal Field (AEON) projects, Mr. Grigoriev notes. If the "Arctic" will work after the repair at the design capacity, then the delivery of "Siberia" in January may be acceptable, he concludes.
