The construction of the lead nuclear-powered icebreaker of the ‘Leader’ project has been started at a shipyard in the Far East, according to the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov. An icebreaker with a capacity of 120 MW will be the first in the world to be able to navigate ships along the Northern Sea Route all year round with an ice thickness of up to four metres, TASS reports.
It is specified that the financing of the construction of the lead icebreaker will be carried out at the expense of the federal budget and its completion is scheduled for 2027. The Head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, previously disclosed that the state corporation estimates the cost of creating the first nuclear-powered icebreaker of the new generation at 120 billion rubles in 2019 prices. The country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade noted that the marginal cost is 127.5 billion rubles.
The Zvezda shipbuilding complex is being created by a consortium led by Rosneft in the bay of Bolshoy Kamen on the basis of the Far East shipbuilding and ship repair centre and the Zvezda Far Eastern plant. The complex has become the only Russian shipyard that will be able to build Project 10510 Leader nuclear icebreakers. The construction of two serial icebreakers will begin in 2023 and 2025. It is planned to put them into operation in 2030 and 2032, respectively.
Ru-Main, 05.07.2021
