There are two views of the Northern Sea Route. Supporters of the first argue that it will never become profitable and no one will use it in large numbers, while supporters of the second argue that this is only the beginning: the ice will melt even more and let this one be the most profitable in certain circumstances. It seems to me that the second one wins. It is not for nothing that such topics are thrown about
LNG carrier Christophe de Margerie (ship owner of PAO Sovcomflot) successfully completed its first commercial voyage on August 17, 2017, delivering a batch of liquefied natural gas(LNG) via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from Norway to South Korea.
During the voyage, the ship set a new record for crossing the NSR - 6.5 days. At the same time, Christophe de Margerie became the first merchant ship in the world that was able to navigate the NSR without icebreaking assistance throughout this route.
During the passage along the NSR, the vessel covered 2,193 miles (3,530 km) from Cape Zhelaniya on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago to Cape Dezhnev in Chukotka, the extreme eastern mainland point of Russia. The exact transition time was 6 days 12 hours 15 minutes.
During the voyage, the vessel again confirmed its exceptional suitability for operation in high latitudes. The average speed during the passage exceeded 14 knots, despite the fact that in some areas the gas carrier was forced to go through ice fields up to 1.2 m thick. total duration voyage from Hammerfest (Norway) to Poryong (South Korea) using the Northern Sea Route was 22 days, which is almost 30% less than it would be required when crossing the traditional southern route through the Suez Canal. The results of the flight made it possible to once again confirm economic efficiency use of the Northern Sea Route for the transit of large-capacity vessels.
"Christophe de Margerie" is the first and so far the only icebreaking gas carrier in the world. The unique vessel was built by order of the Sovcomflot group of companies for year-round transportation of LNG as part of the Yamal LNG project. The vessel was put into operation on March 27, 2017 after the successful completion of ice trials that took place in the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea.
The gas carrier is able to independently overcome ice up to 2.1 m thick. The vessel has an Arc7 ice class, the highest among existing transport vessels. The power of the propulsion plant of the gas carrier is 45 MW, which is comparable to the power of a modern nuclear-powered icebreaker. Christophe de Margerie's high ice-breaking capability and maneuverability are ensured by Azipod-type rudder propellers, while it became the world's first high-ice-class vessel with three Azipods installed at once.
The gas carrier is named after Christophe de Margerie, ex-head of the Total concern. He played a key role in making investment decisions and technological scheme project "Yamal LNG" and made a significant contribution to the development of Russian-French economic relations generally.
Sovcomflot Group (SKF Group) is the largest shipping company in Russia, one of the world's leading companies in the marine transportation of hydrocarbons, as well as servicing offshore exploration and production of oil and gas. Own and chartered fleet includes 149 vessels with a total deadweight of more than 13.1 million tons. Half of the ships have an ice class.
Sovcomflot is involved in servicing major oil and gas projects in Russia and around the world: Sakhalin-1, Sakhalin-2, Varandey, Prirazlomnoye, Novy Port, Yamal LNG, Tangguh (Indonesia). The company's head office is located in St. Petersburg, representative offices are located in Moscow, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, London, Limassol and Dubai.
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Gas carrier "Christophe de Margerie" in the port of Sabetta
In the first part, we talked about the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the Yamal LNG project. Now let's talk about LNG transportation and carriers.
The first liquefied gas was loaded onto the LNG carrier "Christophe de Margerie" on December 8, 2017. President Vladimir Putin took part in the ceremony and started loading.
"Christophe de Margerie" is a pilot vessel of a series of 15 gas tankers designed to service the Yamal LNG project. Gas carriers of this series are able to operate year-round at temperatures down to -50 degrees Celsius. Ice reinforcements of the high Arctic category (Arc7) will allow them to independently overcome ice up to 2.1 meters thick when moving astern. The ships are equipped with three Azipod-type propulsion systems with a total capacity of 45 MW, which is comparable to the capacity of a nuclear-powered icebreaker. New system gas storage membrane type GT NO 96 GW, used in cargo tanks with a total volume of 172,600 cubic meters. m, ensures the safe transportation of LNG along the Northern Sea Route.
Main characteristics: Deadweight 85000 tons. Length 299.9 meters, width 50 meters, draft 12 meters. Operating speed 19.5 knots. According to its characteristics, the vessel today has no analogues in the world. According to ITAR-TASS, the cost of one gas carrier is about $220-230 million.
Construction is being carried out in the Republic of Korea at the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard under the technical supervision of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. DSME won a tender to build a series of 15 ice-class LNG carriers in July 2013. The agreement on the construction of gas carriers was concluded between DSME and Yamal LNG, however, it allows for the possible transfer of the right to finance and purchase tankers to a third party - carrier companies chosen by Yamal LNG. According to DSME, the shipping companies Mitsui OSK Lines and Teekay will receive a total of nine tankers of this series, and shipping company Dynagas - five.
From Yamal LNG, the first cargo containing 170,000 cubic meters of LNG was sent to Malaysian Petronas LNG UK Limited (PLUK), Novatek reported.
This Novatek message needs some explanation.
OAO Yamal LNG sold a batch of gas loaded at Christophe de Margerie to Novatek Gas and Power (a 100% subsidiary of Novatek, its trader registered in Switzerland), and Novatek Gas and Power is already selling liquefied gas Petronas LNG UK Limited (PLUK), registered in England, which is a 100% subsidiary of the Malaysian state company Petronas. It is clear that there is a game with prices, the additional revenue will be deposited in Switzerland without taxes in the Russian treasury.
According to data from the MarineTraffic vessel monitoring service, Christophe de Margerie set off from Sabetta along the western route. The tanker's destination is listed as Skagen, a Danish port where a large regasification terminal is located. So this LNG, owned by PLUK, will go straight into the gas transmission system Western Europe. Here Novatek becomes a direct competitor of Gazprom.
But this applies to LNG sales.
What about transportation?
Shortly before the solemn start of loading the first batch of LNG at the gas terminal in the port of Sabetta, the president spoke about how it should be carried out.
But the president believes that the Duma and the officials, as they say, have it. For more than a year, a draft law on this has been in the Duma. In the meantime, as RBC wrote more than 8 years ago, Russian ships continue to sail under foreign flags, the country's economy suffers significant damage, ships and their crews are deprived of state protection. And it's all about bureaucratic obstacles and the high cost of registering ships under the Russian flag. And, paradoxically, Roskomflot, a 100% state-owned company, registers its ships under a foreign flag. Here is the registration data of the first gas carrier:
Gas tanker "Christophe de Margerie" IMO: 9737187, flag of Cyprus, port of registry Limassol, built on November 9, 2016, building number 2418. Shipbuilder: Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering. Owner: SCF Management Services (Cyprus) Ltd. Operator: Sovcomflot (UK) .
The rest of the vessels will bear the names of Russian Arctic explorers. Thus, the first two gas carriers of the Teekay company (in total the company ordered 6 vessels for the Yamal project) will be named "Eduard Toll" and "Rudolf Samoylovich".
If a law were passed giving the exclusive right to pass through the NSR, all 15 gas carriers being built to service the Yamal LNG project would have to be registered in our ports, for example, Murmansk. And this is additional income to the budget.
It can provide all of Sweden with gas for 4 weeks, and no wonder. This ship is as long as the Eiffel Tower. The first test voyage of the Arctic LNG carrier ended in the port of Sabetta. Now "Christophe de Margerie" can be viewed closer.
A 300-meter ice-class gas carrier, the first and so far the only one in the world, calls at the port of Sabetta. Behind almost 5 months of travel from Korea and 18 days in the ice of two seas - Laptev and Kara. The voyage showed that the tanker is ready for navigation at any time of the year - and in all directions of the world. Its hull is capable of breaking two-meter ice both fore and aft.
“We can maneuver quite well. To wash away the ice if we get stuck somewhere and so that we can get out. Due to the movement of the propellers, the ice passes, roughly speaking, along the hull of the ship and we thereby break it. We passed where it used to be that icebreakers could not pass, ” - says Konstantin Vedernikov, 4th mechanic of the Christophe de Margerie tanker.
There are 2 such navigational bridges on the ship - in the bow and stern parts. But in order to operate this equipment, captains specially study for about 10 years.
Of course, there are no special training courses for icebreaking gas carriers. In this case, the main thing is experience. Literally everything matters: the color, character and thickness of the ice. Looking overboard, the captain must choose the right settings and set the tanker on the right course. By the way, one more of the unique properties of this vessel is its extreme environmental friendliness.
“The gas that is here, when the ship carries gas, it still naturally evaporates. It could be simply released into the atmosphere, but that would be inefficient. This fuel is used to keep the ship moving. Therefore, harmful emissions into the atmosphere are practically zero.” - explained Sergey Frank, General Director of PJSC Sovcomflot.
The technical characteristics of the tanker are unique. Loading "Christophe de Margerie" - 170 thousand cubic meters liquefied gas. This is enough, for example, for four weeks for the whole of Sweden. By 2020, 14 more such vessels will be built. The Yamal LNG project simply needs them.
“Commissioning the full capacity of Yamal LNG will allow us to increase the production of Russian natural liquefied natural gas by 2.6 times. We are moving at a much faster pace than we expect from the development of world markets,” - said Alexey Teksler, First Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation.
10 years of engineering observations and experiments. That is how much time was spent for the tanker to be invented, created, launched and successfully tested. And this again proves that the impossible is possible - if, of course, you really want to.
21:30 — REGNUM According to Sovcomflot, and later quoted by many world agencies, “On August 17, 2017, the LNG carrier Christophe de Margerie successfully completed its first commercial voyage, delivering a consignment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) along the Northern Sea Route (NSR ) from Norway to South Korea. During this voyage, the vessel set a new record for overcoming the NSR - 6 days 12 hours 15 minutes. At the same time, the Christophe de Margerie became the first merchant ship in the world that was able to navigate the NSR without icebreaking assistance throughout the route.”
What is this ship?
The ship was named after the head of the French company Total, Christophe de Margerie, who died in 2014 in a Falcon plane crash at Vnukovo airport. The tanker opens a line of 15 vessels of the Yamalmax class. The ships, however, are built not at Russian, but at South Korean shipyards, the shipbuilder is Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering. But indeed, some of the equipment is domestic, in particular, the gas carrier is equipped with the most modern navigation equipment of the St. Petersburg company Transas. For one voyage, the ship is capable of carrying 172,600 cubic meters. meters of LNG - this volume is enough to fully provide gas to a country like Sweden for four weeks. The length of the vessel reaches 299 meters, the height of the vessel from keel to klotik is 60 meters. The crew is 29 people and is fully staffed by Russian sailors. The full-time officers of the gas carrier include 13 people, each of whom has significant experience in the Arctic shipping and additionally received specialized training.
Ice class ship
The vessel has an Arc7 ice class, the highest among existing transport vessels. The ice class of seagoing vessels is a parameter showing their ability to stay at sea depending on the severity of ice conditions. In Russia, the ice classes of ships are regulated by the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, which defines: "Arc7 (LL7) - independent swimming in cohesive 1-year-olds arctic ice with their thickness up to 1.4 m in winter-spring navigation and up to 1.7 m in summer-autumn when occasionally overcoming ice barriers by raids. Navigation in the channel behind the icebreaker in 1-year Arctic ice up to 2.0 m thick in winter-spring and up to 3.2 m in summer-autumn navigation.
Thus, it cannot be said that the tanker is an ordinary transport vessel, it is a vessel of a certain ice class, which was created for work on the Northern Sea Route, taking into account the weather and climatic conditions that currently exist and are predicted in the near future. And the conditions in the last few years are relatively favorable, but even a decrease in the ice cover along the sea route does not allow ordinary transport ships to pass through the northern route without icebreaker escort.
It should be noted that the transition took place in August, the warmest month in the Arctic latitudes.
Sovcomflot says that Christophe de Margerie can follow the Northern Sea Route all year round in the western direction from Sabetta and for six months (from July to December) in the eastern direction. Once again, it should be noted that not all transport vessels can move along this route and within the specified time, but only those with a certain ice class. Of course, formally, the tanker is not an icebreaker, but it is close to it in terms of its characteristics.
Helps overcome ice and features power plant tanker. In traditional propulsion systems, the engine is located inside the hull of the vessel and the rotation is transmitted to the propeller through intermediate shafts, sometimes through a gearbox. The tanker is equipped with three Azipod rudder propellers. Moreover, it became the first ice-class vessel in the world equipped with such columns.
The Azipod propeller-steering column consists of an electric motor located in a separate housing - a pod. The propeller is mounted directly on the motor shaft, which made it possible to transfer torque from the engine directly to the propeller, bypassing intermediate shafts or gearboxes. The rejection of intermediate elements made it possible to eliminate the energy losses that occur in them when energy is transferred from the motor shaft to the propeller. The installation is fixed outside the ship's hull by means of a hinged mechanism and can rotate around the vertical axis by 360°, which allows for better ship maneuverability both in heading and speed compared to conventional propulsion systems. In addition, such a technical solution reduces the volume of the engine room, thereby increasing the cargo capacity, which is very important for transport ships. Three engines provide high icebreaking and maneuverability and allow using the stern-forward movement principle, which is necessary to overcome hummocks and heavy ice fields.
The world's first ice-class LNG carrier has arrived at the Arctic port of Sabetta (located on the western shore of the Gulf of Ob in the Kara Sea) in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Daewoo Shipbuilding Marine Engineering (DSME) completed the construction of the vessel in South Korea in November 2016. Less than two months ago, it left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. On February 12, the tanker Christophe de Margerie (named after the CEO of Total, who died in a plane crash in 2014), filled with a test volume of liquefied natural gas (boiler LNG serves as fuel for the vessel), entered the Kola Bay, heading to Murmansk. Two days later, the gas carrier continued its journey east, to the Gulf of Ob, for testing in ice conditions. The vessel will enter the Yamal Trade time charter.
According to Rosmorport, this is the first call to the port of Sabetta for vessels of this type (length - 299 meters, width - 50 meters, draft - 11 meters): “The vessel will undergo sea and mooring trials at the technological berth for a month. It is also planned to perform skiving in ice conditions in the limited space of the turning basin in the water area seaport. In addition, will be processed technological processes loading and unloading of liquefied gas.
Christophe de Margerie is the first of fifteen Arc7 ice class LNG carriers for the Yamal LNG project. Capacity - 172.6 thousand cubic meters. According to Sovcomflot, in terms of the capacity of the power plant, 45 MW, the gas carrier is comparable to nuclear icebreaker. The tanker became the ancestor of a new type of vessel - YAMALMAX, associated with the transportation of large volumes of gas in the shallow Gulf of Ob.
LNG will be delivered from Sabetta to the Asian region by the Northern Sea Route during summer navigation. This will significantly reduce the time compared to traditional routes, as well as reduce fuel consumption by ships and reduce harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Each vessel will cost approximately $350 million. Entry schedule production capacity LNG plant provides for the supply of vessels from 2017 to 2021.
As a reminder, earlier Yamal LNG held an international tender with the participation of nine leading shipowners who have relevant experience and are qualified as operators of gas carriers. As a result of the competitive selection, the winners were: Sovcomflot (Russia), Teekay (Canada) in partnership with CLNG (China), MOL (Japan) in partnership with CSLNG (China), Dynagas (Greece) in partnership with CLNG and Sinotrans (China) . At the same time, only Russian company- within the Sakhalin-1, Sakhalin-2, Varandey, Prirazlomnoye and Novoportovskoye projects.
The Yamal LNG natural gas liquefaction complex is being implemented by Novatek in partnership with Total (20%), CNPC (20%) and the Silk Road Fund (9.9%). The plant will be built on the resource base of the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye field (proven and probable gas reserves - 927 billion cubic meters). The plant's capacity is 16.5 million tons of LNG, the total investment is 1.27 trillion rubles. Commissioning is scheduled for 2017. Almost the entire volume has been contracted - 96% of the future volume of LNG. In November last year, the head of Novatek, Leonid Mikhelson, invited Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first LNG filling, which will take place no later than November 2017.
