“Russia” does not give up – Newspaper Kommersant No. 52 (7497) dated 03/28/2023

According to Kommersant’s data, the cost of building the super-powerful lead nuclear icebreaker Rossiya of project 10510 Lider, which previously amounted to 128 billion rubles, may increase by 40–60%, and its construction time may shift to the right. It is assumed that the icebreaker required for regular year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route should be built at the Zvezda shipyard in 2027. According to Kommersant’s sources, there are already backlogs in the production of large hull castings, the cost and timing of work on the production of individual parts of the icebreaker’s nuclear power plant are growing.

The cost of the state contract for the construction of the lead nuclear icebreaker “Russia” of project 10510 “Leader” may increase, and the deadlines for the delivery of the vessel for some hull work at the Zvezda shipyard (managed by a consortium of Rosneft, Rosneftegaz and Gazprombank) are already behind schedule, follows from the minutes of the meeting with the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Viktor Yevtukhov dated March 13 (Kommersant has it). According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, who are familiar with the course of the discussion of the issue, we can talk about increasing the cost of the state contract by 40-60%.

Until the end of April, Rosatom, based on Rosneft data, must submit a report to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on the increase in the cost and timing of work. At the same time, as follows from the protocol, Deputy Minister Yevtukhov emphasized “the impossibility of disrupting the deadline for delivery.” The question of the need to postpone the deadline, according to Kommersant, has already been brought to the attention of Vladimir Putin. The office of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin told Kommersant that the issue had not yet been discussed in the government. Rosneft declined to comment.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to Kommersant that the issue of time and cost was discussed at the meeting, and said that “only based on the results of the examination, if necessary, it will be possible to reasonably talk about an objective increase in the time and cost of construction.”

Rosneft, according to the minutes of the meeting, explains the need to increase the cost and postpone the deadlines by disrupting the supply of large body castings – an ice tooth, rudder blade brackets and outer propeller shaft brackets, which the Ukrainian plant Energomashspetsstal was supposed to supply to Zvezda during 2022, located in Kramatorsk (destruction of the industrial premises of the plant was reported as a result of hostilities in Ukraine). The contract with the new manufacturer – UZTM-KARTEX – has not yet been concluded, and the delivery dates for these castings have been tentatively postponed to August 2025.

The cost of contracts for the supply of a nuclear power plant (NPP) of the Rossiya icebreaker, which includes steam turbine units (STU) of Power Machines, and the RITM-400 reactor plant of Atomenergomash, may increase by 12% (up to 44 billion rubles). Thus, the contract with Power Machines increased in price by 65%, to 9.48 billion rubles, the delivery dates were postponed by eight to ten months – to the end of 2025.

Rosatom told Kommersant that Atomenergomash is producing RITM-400 within the contract period. Power Machines confirmed to Kommersant the production of vocational schools within the contract period – 2025. The justification for a significant increase in the prices of purchased materials and components for vocational schools (including Rosatom enterprises) was considered by the commission of the customer and confirmed, they said.

The untimely delivery of the components of the nuclear power plant may delay the formation of the central part of the hull, in particular the engine rooms, of Rossiya and shift the overall schedule for the construction of the vessel, says a Kommersant source close to Rosneft.

According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, there is a backlog in the work on the part of Zvezda itself: in order to reduce it, the shipyard needs to attract more workers for hull and welding work on the icebreaker. By mid-March, instead of 15% of the total planned work, only 5% had been completed. “If the speed of hull work is not increased by a multiple, then the components of the nuclear power plant will hardly be needed in 2025,” Kommersant’s interlocutors remark.

The construction of a nuclear icebreaker is the first experience of the Zvezda shipyard, says Mikhail Grigoriev, head of the Gekon consulting center. “Without an idea of ​​the timing of the implementation of individual stages of construction, the possibility of parallel work on other nodes of the icebreaker, it is difficult to say how critical this delay is for its delivery,” he notes.

As for year-round navigation on the Northern Sea Route, it primarily relates to the operation of gas carriers of NOVATEK projects, since, according to the rules of navigation in the waters of the Northern Sea Route 2022, only vessels of the Arctic ice class Arc7 and above can sail year-round in heavy ice conditions, even under the guidance of an icebreaker. . Only NOVATEK, apart from Norilsk Nickel, has vessels of the required ice class. LNG carriers being built for NOVATEK’s second project, Arctic LNG 2, on Zvezda in partnership with South Korean Samsung Heavy Industries have improved ice-breaking ability, while those built on DSME have even more power. “This suggests that year-round navigation in the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route can be started without waiting for the commissioning of the Leader icebreaker,” Mr. Grigoriev believes.

Tatyana Dyatel, Dmitry Kozlov