Russian icebreakers for Northern Sea Route will be built in Turkey

The contract for the construction of Icebreaker 7 class vessel for the Northern Sea Route will be awarded to Turkish company Sefine Denizcilik Tersanecilik Turizm Sanayi Ve Ticaret A S. This is the only company that applied for participation in the tender of the Russian Federal Agency for Sea and River Fleet (Rosmorrechflot), The Kommersant reports.

As the newspaper notes, Russia has to order ships from abroad because Russian companies fail to comply with construction schedules. In addition, the construction of such a vessel in Russia will cost 15-16 billion rubles or even more, taking into account the rise in steel prices.

Sources claim that until recently Rosmorrechflot tried to adjust the documentation on the list of equipment in order to attract more applications. However, all equipment has risen in price, and Russian companies thus fail to compete with the Turks.

The shipyard, where the icebreaker will be built, was founded in 2005; its territory covers about 140,000 square meters. The shipyard works with vessels up to 120,000 tons, including Aframax class tankers. Russia has only one shipyard of this scale - Zvezda Shipyard in the Far Eastern region. 

This is not the first time when a contract for the construction of Russian ships is awarded to Turkey. In 2018, the Turkish Kyzey Star Shipyard won the tender for two LNG-powered ferries for the Ust-Luga-Baltiysk line.

In late May, Russia's Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed transporting oil and gas along the Northern Sea Route only by ships built in Russia.