Helsinki Shipyard to build icebreaker for Norilsk Nickel

Norilsk Nickel and Helsinki Shipyard Oy are building a new environmentally friendly icebreaker for Norilsk Nickel’s use, said a press release on Tuesday.

Helsinki Shipyard Oy completed purchasing contracts for the main equipment of the icebreaker contracted last year, along with model tests in ice and open water for the icebreaker design developed by Aker Arctic.

The ship's future operating area is the Yenisei River basin, Yenisei Bay and the Kara Sea securing access to Dudinka seaport both for its own fleet and its partners.

The icebreaker's mission is to make the channel in Yenisei river for Nornickel Arctic Expresses and tow additionally employed fleet of cargo ships Arc5 class with up to 20 000 tons deadweight.

The icebreaker’s home port will be Murmansk.

The construction work will begin this year and the vessel will be delivered to the customer for the winter season 2025.

“Receiving new icebreaker by the end of 2024 is very important for Nornickel as it provides additional transportation capacities needed to implement both our strategic investment projects including the city of Norilsk renovation plans. And we are happy to declare that it’s going to be fueled by LNG which goes in line with current environmental trends on decarbonisation and will be a pioneer icebreaker on LNG exploited at Nothern Sea Route,” said Senior Vice President of Norilsk Nickel Sergey Dubovitskiy.

The new icebreaker will have an integrated dual-fuel diesel-electric power plant, which can use both LNG and low-sulfur diesel oil as fuel with good energy efficiency and low emissions.

The vessel will be built for the class notation Icebreaker 8 of the Russian Maritime Register (RMRS) and it will be capable of breaking 2 m thick snow-covered ice when operating either ahead or astern. The ship will also have facilities for transporting cargo and supporting helicopter operations.

The employment impact of the contract at the shipyard and in the marine industry network is about 2,100 person-years.

The contract is significant for Helsinki Shipyard and brings stability to the shipyard´s order book, extending it to the end of 2024, said the press release, adding that the new icebreaker will be the largest and most powerful diesel-electric icebreaker ever built in Finland.