News
Publish date: August 7, 2007
Written by: Charles Digges
News
Officials say they plan to have the 19-year-old Sevmorput icebreaker ready for drilling operations within a year and a half.
The project is expected by company officials to catapult the Russian civilian icebreaker fleet onto the cutting edge of oil drilling and speculation in the Arctic. But increased activity of nuclear vessels will put pressure on Russia’s already strained resources to store radioactive waste. This strain on the environment could be compounded by a higher potential for oil spills as the Arctic oil gold rush gains momentum.
The announcement of the Sevmorput project comes quickly on the heels of last week’s deep-sea oil speculating journey below the polar icecap led by Russian parliamentarian and Arctic explorer Artur Chlingarov and the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya.
The trip, which culminated in Chilingarov descending in a bathyscape to set an aluminum Russian flag on the sea bed below the North Pole, was part of Moscow’s push to lay claim to great swathes of disputed oil rich underwater territories.
The United States and Canada oppose Arctic territorial claims Russia has made to the Lomonosov Ridge, which extends into Canadian waters, and both governments have scoffed at Moscow’s exploration of the new Arctic frontier.
But the Murmansk Shipping Company’s investment in retooling the Sevmorput, which was commissioned in 1988 to deliver cargo containers to towns along Siberia’s northern coast, would seem to fit with Russia’s plans for further oil exploration in the Arctic. The Murmansk Shipping Company is in charge of Russia’s civilian nuclear icebreaker fleet.
According to Alexander Medvedev, General Director of the Murmansk Shipping Company, the Sevmorput will be readied for drilling operations within the next 18 months – a breakneck pace by most experts’ assessments. The transformation of the vessel will take place at the Zvezdochka ship repair yard in Severodvisnk, b-port.com reported.
Medvedev specified the modified Sevmorput would drill the Barents Sea and further into the Arctic, the Barents Observer reported.
Medvedev said that the transformation operation is indicative of the Murmansk Shipping Company’s growing focus on supplying its fleet of nine nuclear icebreakers for the predicted Arctic oil boom.
Medvedev said the Sevmorput project is hoped to position the Murmansk Shipping Company as a major contractor in Arctic oil exploration. The company has worked in cooperation with Russian gas giant Lukoil to develop terminals in Varandey along the Baltic Sea coast.
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.