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Russia is actively updating its fleet: by 2035 it is planned to build more than 1,000 new ships

The most advanced and modern ships being built and launched in Russia are the Project 22220 icebreakers. There are five of them: Arktika, Sibir, Ural, Yakutia and Chukotka. These are the most powerful nuclear icebreakers in the world.

Today, only Russia has a nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet. In other Arctic countries, there are no tasks to ensure year-round navigation in severe ice conditions. Now the nuclear icebreaker fleet has seven vessels - in addition to the project 22220, there are icebreakers Yamal, 50 Years of Victory, Taimyr and Vaigach afloat. Vessels ensure the safety of navigation and stable navigation along the Northern Sea Route.

Vessels are being built to serve inland water routes. Initially, it was supposed to build 10 such vessels, but the crisis of the current year put a pause in the investment activity of customers, which suspended orders for ships. According to the expert Malysheva from the Portnews information and analytical agency, the payback period for large passenger ships exceeds 20 years. Nevertheless, the expert is sure that in the future the demand for such vessels will arise again due to the need to replace the old river cruise fleet. In September last year, the Infoline agency in its study indicated that the average age of passenger ships of inland water transport was 38 years, cruise ships - more than 49 years, and the standard service life is critically exceeded in 45–50% of such vessels.

Do not lag behind their large counterparts and small passenger ships. For example, eco-friendly Ecocruiser catamarans have appeared in Russia, using batteries for movement. Sustainable shipbuilding is already prevalent in the world. According to the British agency Clarkson Research, in January-August 2022, green vessels accounted for 61%, or 548 units, of the total global order book, which is 899 vessels. South Korea has become a leader in green shipbuilding.

The Russian electric passenger catamaran was built at the shipyard of the Emperium shipbuilding company by order of Vodokhod. Passenger Port" (subsidiary of "Vodokhod"). In total, there are five such vessels in the series, the cost of each is 220 million rubles. The estimated payback period of the project is 15 years. In navigation in 2023, two electric catamarans will be operated in Krasnoyarsk and Nizhny Novgorod. If we have time to prepare the infrastructure, then the third electric ship will start operating next year in Perm," the press service of the Vodokhod company told Vedomosti.

Ecocruiser is the first serial project of electric propulsion ships in Russia. Its difference from diesel vessels lies in the fact that the catamaran creates practically no noise from the engines and does not require the use of fuels and lubricants, which eliminates their spill into the river, the press service of Vodokhod explained to Vedomosti. According to the company, the demand for electric vessels is increasing every day, as the regions learn about new technologies, including the environmental neutrality of the vessel. Vodokhod, a company that organizes cruises, said that the possibility of switching to electric ships is relevant for St. Petersburg, Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Perm and other cities located on rivers with dense passenger traffic. “Vessels powered by an electric motor can be built for various purposes of operation: urban passenger transport, pleasure fleet, cruise ships,” the company’s press service adds.

But, like all electric transport, the problem of reliability and availability of the charging infrastructure is in the first place,” Shaposhnikov notes. According to him, the issue of recharging can slow down the development of the use of such vessels for 2-3 years. Malysheva adds that the demand for eco-friendly vessels is limited by the high cost and the requirement for special coastal infrastructure for its operation.

The vessel can operate up to 24 hours in battery economy mode at a maximum speed of 30 km/h for up to 2.5 hours. According to Shaposhnikov, such vessels will also help unload tourist traffic from St. Petersburg to Peterhof and Kronstadt and will be popular in the region.

Technology for Science

Innovations in shipbuilding are also applied to the research fleet. Since October this year, the Sevastopol State University (SevGU) has been operating the Pioneer-M vessel, built at the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard (part of the USC). Scientists from SevGU took part in its design. The cost of Pioneer-M is 300 million rubles. 

Pioneer-M is the first ship in Russia that uses and will continue to improve unmanned navigation technologies. The ship is intended for expeditionary activities in the coastal areas of the Black Sea. In September, Aleksey Chuklin, Director of the Directorate of Scientific Activities of SevGU, reported that the groups would work in the field of archeology, robotics and marine biology. According to him, the possibility of forming a fourth group is also being considered - for example, geologists, hydrologists or hydrographers. The length of the vessel is about 26 m, width - 9 m, maximum speed - 10 knots. It can operate autonomously for five days, the cruising range is 500 miles.

Two more research vessels (RVs) - "floating laboratories" - are being built by the Zvezda SSC. In 2020, the government allocated 28.4 billion rubles for these purposes. The tasks of the two as yet unnamed vessels will be to carry out fundamental and applied scientific work in the waters of the World Ocean. The construction is planned to be completed in 2024. The vessels will be operated by the Unified Departmental Operator of the Research Fleet of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. The ice class of the two new vessels will allow them to independently overcome first-year ice up to 0.6 m thick in winter-spring navigation and up to 0.8 m in summer-autumn navigation. They will be able to be in autonomous navigation for 50 days and make transitions with a range of 7500 miles. Each of the two new R/Vs will have 11 laboratories for hydrophysical, chemical, biological, meteorological, geophysical, geological and other works. “Russia has competencies in the segment of vessels for operation in Arctic conditions,” Chernov notes. At the same time, the expert continues, the Arc4 ice class used on scientific vessels allows them to be effectively operated not only in polar, but also in tropical seas. “This is the innovativeness of the courts, their versatility and multifunctionality,” the expert concludes.

Now most of the ships in the Russian scientific fleet were built back in the days of the USSR. Their age varies from 31 to 46 years. The most modern ships - "Aquamarine" and "Akademik Treshnikov" were built in 2007 and 2012. But the range of tasks of the latter primarily includes the delivery of goods. “Currently the largest scientific fleet in the US and Japan,” says Vitaly Chernov, Head of Analytics at Portnews. According to him, Russia has two options: build a lot of ships specialized in different tasks, or build fewer, but multifunctional ones. Taking into account the fact that the cost of ships is high, the expert continues, from the point of view of cost optimization, it is more profitable to create projects of multifunctional ships, preferably with a modular principle for accommodating certain laboratories.

According to Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of Infoline-Analytics, the main task of the domestic shipbuilding industry is not so much in innovative courts as in localization. “There is a great temptation to replace ship components from Europe and the United States with Chinese or Turkish ones because of the cheapness of the latter,” continues Burmistrov. According to the expert, it is important to support the serial production of existing samples, the redesign of ships for domestic ship equipment.

Source: https://www.vedomosti.ru/industry/infrastructure_development/articles/2022/12/15/955368-rossiya-aktivno-obnovlyaet-flot