Nordic Yards receives first newbuilding contract
09 Mar 2010
Nordic Yards in Germany, formerly Wadan Yards, has received an order from the Russian mining company Norilsk Nickel to build an ARC7 ice-breaking Arctic tanker which will be mainly deployed on the northern Russian shipping routes.
The design work on this tanker had already begun while contract negotiations were still under way, which means that construction of the ship is expected to begin as early as 1 July at the Wismar shipyard and is scheduled for delivery at the end of September 2011.
“This special tanker represents our first order”, says Vitaly Yusufov, owner and managing director of Nordic Yards on announcing the new order. “Further interesting orders are to come.”
Specially constructed to cope with year-round deployment in Arctic waters, the vessel of the type ‘Nordic AT 19’ will be able to break through ice thicknesses up to 1.5m. At some 170m in length, a beam of approximately 23m, the 18,500 dwt tanker will provide a cargo tank capacity of over 20,600m3. The diesel-electric machinery will drive an azimuthing podded propulsor giving a service speed of 15.3 knots.
