Atomflot reported that a Turkish company has been awarded the contract for the construction of a floating dock for the new universal nuclear icebreakers of Project 22220. The contract is worth 4.981 billion rubles (55 million euros). The dock is to be built within 29 months and delivered to Murmansk, according to Mustafa Kashka, Atomflot’s managing director. The dock will be at least 220 m long, about 48 m wide and have a carrying capacity of 30,000 tons. It will be operated by a 30-member crew.
“The signing of the contract is an important step in the implementation of the onshore infrastructure preparation program for maintenance of universal nuclear-powered icebreakers of Project 22220. The Turkish shipyard has the necessary competences and has a good reputation on the shipbuilding market. According to the contract terms the construction, including the delivery of the floating dock to the port of Murmansk, will take 29 months”, said Mustafa Kashka, General Director of FSUE Atomflot.
Not a single Russian shipyard prepared a bid for the construction of a dock and participated in the award of the contract. The inquired shipyards agreed that they could not build a dock at the price offered by Rosatom.
As a result, last year Atomflot’s first call for tenders, in which only Russian shipyards could participate, was declared invalid. As a result, three bids were submitted by foreign shipyards for the second call in early 2021 – the Turkish shipyard Kyzey Star, which offered a price of 4.981 billion rubles, Turkey’s Epic Denizcilik ve Gemi Insaat AS (4.45 billion rubles) and the Chinese Jiangsu Dajin Heavy Industry (4.57 billion rubles).
However, the Commission refused to allow the latter two companies to continue participating in the procurement. Subsequently, the Chinese company attempted to challenge the results of the tender, which resulted in the signing of the contract with the winning Turkish yard being postponed for two months.
The Kyzey Stern shipyard has its main facilities in Tuzla, the southern outskirts and Asian part of Istanbul. The company has already built a number of ships for Russian customers.
Today, Atomflot has two floating docks at its base in Murmansk with a length of 206 m and load capacity of 20,775 tons, and one with a length of 173 m and load capacity of 28,000 tons. The construction of a new floating dock to provide docking for the new Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers currently under construction has been under discussion since 2015 and is likely to take some time.
Heiner Kubny, PolarJournal
