NSR Shipping Traffic – Icebreaker support in 2019

In 2019, as always, icebreakers worked all year round. A total of 17 icebreakers were used for the assistance; in total, they made 231 voyages or change of location: most of them (156) in the winter navigation period, the rest (75) in the summer period. Nuclear icebreakers did the most work. Like last year, 3 river icebreakers – “Kaptain Babichev”, “Kaptain Borodkin” and “Kaptain Evdokimov” paved the way in Siberian rivers and at the approaches to them. The new generation icebreakers “Andrey Vilkitskiy” and “Alexander Sannikov”, commissioned by Gazprom Neft, began working in the Arctic in 2019. Their main work was on approaches to the Arctic Gate terminal. These are the youngest icebreakers operating in 2019, and the oldest was “Tor” icebreaker (built in 1964).

Vessel name	Year of construction	Age (by 2019)
Kapitan Babichev	1983	36
Kapitan Borodkin	1994	25
Kapitan Evdokimov	1983	36
Dikson	1983	36
Dudinka	1970	49
Kapitan Khlebnikov	1981	39
Krasin	1976	43
Tor	1964	55
Moskva	2008	11
Novorossiysk	2016	3
Kigoriak	1979	33
Andrey Vilkitskiy	2018	1
Alexander Sannikov	2018	1
50 let Pobedy	2007	12
Taimyr	1989	30
Vaygach	1990	29
Yamal	1992	27

The icebreaker tracks on the map reflect well the navigation on the Northern Sea Route: the main activity in winter (December-June) is voyages to the Kara Sea, the Yenisey Bay, the Ob Bay. With the onset of the summer navigation period (July-November), shipping activity spreads over the entire NSR.