Novatek wants year-round use of Northern Sea Route from 2024

SABETTA, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, Dec 12 (PRIME) -- Russian independent gas producer Novatek needs an icebreaker fleet to operate year-round shipping to the East through the Northern Sea Route from 2024, CEO Leonid Mikhelson told Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev late on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Deputy Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh said that the government will submit a ruling to the cabinet to allow 15 Arc7 tankers bearing foreign flags and belonging to Novatek and its partners to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Northern Sea Route until the end of 2018, and that provision of the permits may take up to three years.

“A timely launch of an icebreaker fleet is of critical importance for LNG projects. We have to ensure year-round shipping through the Northern Sea Route in both Western and Eastern directions. The government approved a program of launching three LK-60 icebreakers in 2017, 2019, and 2020, but the program had been derailed, and the first icebreaker has been delayed for more than two years,” Mikhelson said.

Russia needs to launch five nuclear-powered icebreakers in 2019–2025 in order to ensure year-round shipping from the Gulf of Ob to the Bering Strait. Novatek also launched construction of four 40-megawatt LNG icebreakers together with state nuclear power corporation Rosatom.

“We plan to finish them no later than in 2023, so that we are capable of year-round shipping to the East already in 2024 and so that we completely cover the direction with the four icebreakers. I am asking you, Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev), to support us and to issue a ruling so that the project is implemented no later than in 2023,” he said.

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