''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' ( rus, Владимир Игнатюк) is a Russian
icebreaking
An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...
anchor handling tug supply vessel. She was built by
Burrard-Yarrows Corporation in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in 1983 as ''Kalvik'' as part of an Arctic drilling system developed by
BeauDril, the drilling subsidiary of
Gulf Canada Resources
Gulf Canada was a Canadian integrated petroleum company that existed between 1944 and 2001. Gulf Oil, Gulf Oil Corporation began operating in Canada in 1942, and two years later formed a Canadian subsidiary called the Canadian Gulf Oil Company. In ...
. After the offshore oil exploration in the
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
ended in the early 1990s, she was sold to the Canadian shipping company
Fednav
Fednav is a privately owned group of Canadian companies, divisions, and subsidiaries in the maritime transport industry.Fednav, 2007. ''Fednav Divisions''. Primarily involved in transporting over 30 million tonnes of bulk cargo and break bulk ...
in 1997 and renamed ''Arctic Kalvik''. In 2003, she was purchased by
Murmansk Shipping Company and transferred to Russia.
''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' has a sister ship, , which is operated by the
Canadian Coast Guard.
Development and construction
In the mid-1970s,
Gulf Canada Resources
Gulf Canada was a Canadian integrated petroleum company that existed between 1944 and 2001. Gulf Oil, Gulf Oil Corporation began operating in Canada in 1942, and two years later formed a Canadian subsidiary called the Canadian Gulf Oil Company. In ...
began developing an Arctic drilling system consisting of two mobile drilling units: a Mobile Arctic Caisson (MAC) that could be submerged and filled with gravel to form an artificial drilling island in waters up to in depth and a floating Conical Drilling Unit (CDU) designed for drilling in water depths between while afloat. The intention of this development was to overcome the relatively short operating window of
drillships during the ice-free season (100 to 110 days a year) and the water depth limitations of artificial dredged islands in the Canadian part of the
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea (; french: Mer de Beaufort, Iñupiaq: ''Taġiuq'') is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Sir Fr ...
. The drilling units, each capable of completing one exploration well per year, would be supported by four Arctic Class 4 vessels: two large icebreakers providing 24-hour
ice management
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opa ...
and standby services on the drilling site and two smaller icebreaking vessels responsible for anchor handling and supply runs between the drilling rigs and coastal bases. By 1982, both drilling units and all four icebreaking vessels were under construction in Canada and Japan for
BeauDril, Gulf Canada's drilling subsidiary, and the company had committed itself to a billion-dollar exploration program between 1983 and 1988.
The icebreaker design was provided by the Montreal-based engineering company
German & Milne
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
. During the development phase, the hull form was extensively tested at the Hamburg Ship Model Basin (HSVA)
ice tank with particular emphasis of preventing broken ice floes from flowing under the hull and into the propellers. The result was a production-friendly
fully-developable hull form with a semi-spoon bow and large ice plough.
The construction of the two icebreakers was awarded to
Burrard-Yarrows Corporation in December 1979 and the work was split between the company's
Victoria and
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
divisions. In order to expedite the delivery of the vessels, Gulf Canada had already purchased the engines, gearboxes, shaft lines and propellers before signing the C$79 million shipbuilding contract for two hulls.
The keel of newbuilding number 554 was laid at the Burrard-Yarrows Victoria shipyard on 9 June 1982 and the vessel was launched on 2 April 1983 as ''Kalvik'',
Inuktitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
for "
wolverine
The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for "gluttony, glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is ...
", following a naming contest by Northern Territories school children.
The icebreaker was delivered on 30 July 1983, slightly behind the original schedule which called for delivery in April when Gulf Canada's exploratory drilling program was set to begin.
''Kalvik''s sister ship,
''Terry Fox'', was delivered in Vancouver in September of the same year. At the time, Beaudril's two icebreakers were the most powerful privately owned icebreaking vessels in the world.
Design
General characteristics
''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' is
long overall
__NOTOC__
Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and ...
and
between perpendiculars. She has a beam of and draws of water when fully laden. However, during icebreaking operations she operates at a reduced draught of according to her ice class certificate issued by the
Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) maintains a ship register of the Russian Federation, based in Saint Petersburg, and is a marine classification society. Its activities aim to enhance safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, se ...
.
While the crew's common spaces such as mess rooms and lounges are arranged on the main deck, the accommodation — single cabins with private washrooms for the officers and semi-private washrooms for the crew — is arranged in the box-shaped deckhouse. There are berths for 18 crew members and 16 supernumeraries; 34 in total.
When operating as a supply vessel, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' can carry 100 tonnes of bulk cargo in silos, 800 tonnes of deck cargo on the aft deck, and 200 tonnes of drilling water. The towing gear consists of an 80-ton winch holding of wire and a separate 200-ton double-drum anchor-handling winch.
Although initially built without one, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' was later fitted with a
helideck
A helipad is a landing area or platform for helicopters and powered lift aircraft.
While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard s ...
above the foredeck.
Power and propulsion
''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' has a diesel-mechanical propulsion system consisting of four main engines driving two shafts through twin input-single output gearboxes. The prime movers are
eight-cylinder Stork-Werkspoor 8TM410 medium-speed
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
s producing at 600rpm in continuous service. Each pair of main engines is coupled to a Lohmann & Stolterfoht Navilus GVE 1500 A single-stage reduction gearbox via flexible couplings designed to automatically disengage if the propellers are blocked by ice. However, each propeller shaft is also fitted with a heavy flywheel in diameter and in thickness to increase rotational inertia and absorb shocks from propeller-ice interaction. Unlike the other Canadian offshore icebreakers built in the 1980s, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' does not have a
propeller nozzles to shroud her propellers.
Her LIPS Canada
nickel aluminium bronze controllable pitch propeller
In marine propulsion, a variable-pitch propeller is a type of propeller with blades that can be rotated around their long axis to change the blade pitch. Reversible propellers—those where the pitch can be set to negative values—can also ...
s are designed to transmit of power per shaft to the water and produce a combined static bollard pull of about . For onboard electricity production, the ship has two
Caterpillar
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Sym ...
D399 ship service diesel generators and a single Caterpillar 3406 DITA emergency diesel generator. In addition, both reduction gearboxes are fitted with clutched
power take-off
A power take-off or power takeoff (PTO) is one of several methods for taking power from a power source, such as a running engine, and transmitting it to an application such as an attached implement or separate machine.
Most commonly, it is a sp ...
s for 1,250kVa shaft alternators that supply power to the stern thruster and air bubbling system compressors.
In line with her original
Canadian Arctic Shipping Pollution Prevention Regulations (CASPPR) Arctic Class 4 rating, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' is designed to break at least first-year level ice with a continuous speed of . During icebreaking operations, the ice friction is reduced by lubricating the hull-ice interface with a low-pressure air bubbling system developed by Wärtsilä.
In open water, the system can also act as a
bow thruster
Manoeuvering thruster (bow thruster or stern thruster) is a transversal propulsion device built into, or mounted to, either the bow or stern, of a ship or boat to make it more manoeuvrable. Bow thrusters make docking easier, since they allow th ...
and used for maneuvering together with the ship's single centerline rudder and a transverse stern thruster. When operating in ice-free waters, the ship can transit at an economical speed of about with just two main engines.
Career
''Kalvik'' (1983–1997)
Between 1983 and 1990, BeauDril's mobile drilling units drilled a total of nineteen exploratory wells in the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea with the support of ''Kalvik'' and other icebreaking vessels: nine with the Mobile Arctic Caisson ''
Molikpaq
The Sakhalin-2 (russian: Сахалин-2) project is an oil and gas development in Sakhalin Island, Russia. It includes development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye oil field and the Lunskoye natural gas field offshore Sakhalin Island in the Okhot ...
'' and ten with the Conical Drilling Unit ''
Kulluk''. Twelve wells alone were drilled in the Amauligak prospect, the most significant oil and gas field discovered in the region, but the high expectations for the Beaufort Sea were not met: the area was characterized by a large number of small, widely scattered resources. ''Molikpaq'' was mothballed after completing the last well in 1990. However, ''Kulluk'' was used to drill a total of four wells in 1992 and 1993 for
ARCO Alaska on the American part of the Beaufort Sea before being cold-stacked at
Tuktoyaktuk.
[Beaufort Sea Exploration Wells](_blank)
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
In 1993, the majority of BeauDril's fleet was purchased by
Canadian Marine Drilling (Canmar), the drilling subsidiary of
Dome Petroleum
Dome Petroleum Limited was a Calgary-based oil and gas company. Founded in 1950 as a subsidiary of the Toronto company Dome Mines Limited, Dome was built by Jack Gallagher, who remained with the company until 1983. In 1988 Dome was purchased by ...
(later
Amoco Canada) that had been Gulf Canada's main competitor in the Beaufort Sea for more than a decade.
However, the company decided to retain the ownership of ''Kalvik'' while her sister ship, ''Terry Fox'', was sold to the Canadian Coast Guard following a two-year lease. In 1997, ''Kalvik'' was finally sold to the Canadian shipping company
Fednav
Fednav is a privately owned group of Canadian companies, divisions, and subsidiaries in the maritime transport industry.Fednav, 2007. ''Fednav Divisions''. Primarily involved in transporting over 30 million tonnes of bulk cargo and break bulk ...
who renamed her ''Arctic Kalvik'' and reflagged the vessel to
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
.
''Arctic Kalvik'' (1997–2003)
In September 1999, ''Arctic Kalvik'' was chartered to the
Dutch marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of recovering a ship and its cargo after a shipwreck or other maritime casualty. Salvage may encompass towing, re-floating a vessel, or effecting repairs to a ship. Today, protecting the coastal environment from ...
company and stationed at
Land's End.
In January 2000, she helped to refloat the unladen
chemical tanker
A chemical tanker is a type of tanker ship designed to transport chemicals in bulk. As defined in MARPOL Annex II, chemical tanker means a ship constructed or adapted for carrying in bulk any liquid product listed in chapter 17 of the Internat ...
''Corsica'' that had dragged anchor in a storm shortly before New Year. While the icebreaker had to remain about from the stricken tanker due to shallow waters, she succeeded in pulling the other ship off the rocks by using 75% of her rated bollard pull. In February 2000, ''Arctic Kalvik'' also participated in refloating the
car carrier ''Asian Parade'' which had been stranded at Codling Bank on the
Irish coast. In October 2001, Wijsmuller terminated the vessel's charter.
In September 2001, ''Arctic Kalvik'' was contracted by
Crowley Maritime
Crowley, legally Crowley Maritime Corporation, is based in Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 1892, Crowley is primarily a family- and employee-owned vessel management, owner, and supply chain logistics services company, providing services globall ...
to assist towing the cold-stacked Concrete Island Drilling System (CIDS) ''
Glomar Beaufort Sea I'' from
Prudhoe Bay
Prudhoe Bay is a census-designated place (CDP) located in North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 2,174 people, up from just five residents in the 2000 census; however, at any give ...
to
Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan (russian: Сове́тская Га́вань, lit. ''Soviet harbor'') is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, and a port on the Strait of Tartary which connects the Sea of Okhotsk in the north with the Sea of Japan in the south. P ...
in the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...
. The submersible
gravity-based structure
A gravity-based structure (GBS) is a support structure held in place by gravity, most notably offshore oil platforms. These structures are often constructed in fjords due to their protected area and sufficient depth.
Offshore oil platforms
Pri ...
, which also dated back to the 1980s oil exploration in the Arctic, would be rebuilt as the drilling and production platform
''Orlan'' for
Exxon Neftegas
Exxon Neftegas Limited (ENL; russian: Эксон Нефтегаз Лимитед) is a defunct subsidiary of the American oil company ExxonMobil which operated mostly in Russia, notably Sakhalin and other parts of the Far East. ENL was the primary ...
's
Sakhalin-I
The Sakhalin-I (russian: Сахалин-1) project, a sister project to Sakhalin-II, is a consortium for production of oil and gas on Sakhalin Island and immediately offshore. It operates three fields in the Okhotsk Sea: Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkut ...
project. ''Arctic Kalvik'' provided
ice management
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opa ...
during the initial tow from Prudhoe Bay to
Barrow
Barrow may refer to:
Places
England
* Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
** Borough of Barrow-in-Furness, local authority encompassing the wider area
** Barrow and Furness (UK Parliament constituency)
* Barrow, Cheshire
* Barrow, Gloucestershire
* Barro ...
, and then joined two other tugs to tow the structure across the ocean. The tow arrived in Russia on 14 October 2001 after having refueled from a Russian tanker mid-voyage.
In 2002, ''Arctic Kalvik'' returned to Alaska through the
Northwest Passage
The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the Arct ...
to tow another Beaufort Sea drilling unit, the
single steel drilling caisson
Single steel drilling caisson is a drill barge that was built for year-round oil exploration in shallow ice-covered waters in the Beaufort Sea. The unit, initially named ''SSDC'' and later shortened to ''SDC'', was converted from an old oil tank ...
(''SDC''), from
Port Clarence, Alaska to
Prudhoe Bay
Prudhoe Bay is a census-designated place (CDP) located in North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 2,174 people, up from just five residents in the 2000 census; however, at any give ...
. The 125,000-ton Arctic drilling unit consisting of the forward two thirds of the hull of a
very large crude carrier
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cru ...
mated with a submersible barge would be used to drill an exploratory well for
Encana Oil & Gas at the McCovey prospect. Together with another former Beaufort Sea icebreaker,
''Kigoria'', the was completed in just 12 days.
In 2003, ''Arctic Kalvik'' was sold to the Russian
Murmansk Shipping Company (MSCO) and renamed ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' after (1927–2003).
''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' (2003–present)
According to MSCO, the acquisition of ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' in July 2003 marked the first time in the history of modern Russia when an icebreaker was owned by a private commercial company instead of a state-controlled entity. The company's spokespersons went as far as to claim that the 7,000-ton icebreaker was "in many ways analogous" to the considerably larger Russian polar icebreakers ''
Kapitan Nikolaev'' and ''
Kapitan Dranitsyn
''Kapitan Dranitsyn'' (russian: «Капитан Драницын») is a Russian icebreaker, built in Finland for the former Soviet Union. Since October 1995 she has been used as a research vessel by AARI. She also offers excursions in the Arctic ...
''.
Later in 2003, another former Canadian Beaufort Sea offshore icebreaker, the 1979-built former
''Canmar Kigoriak'' (then just ''Kigoria''), was also purchased by another Russian owner.
In November 2004, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' participated in the clean-up operation following the foundering of the bulk carrier ''Stepan Razin'' which was also owned by MSCO. The ship, laden with 18,000tons of
apatite
Apatite is a group of phosphate minerals, usually hydroxyapatite, fluorapatite and chlorapatite, with high concentrations of OH−, F− and Cl− ions, respectively, in the crystal. The formula of the admixture of the three most common e ...
concentrate bound for Finland in its cargo holds and 287tons of fuel oil in its tanks, dragged anchor in a storm on 23 October and sank after drifting onto rocks near the entrance to the
Kola Bay
Kola Bay (russian: Кольский залив) or Murmansk Fjord is a 57-km-long fjord of the Barents Sea that cuts into the northern part of the Kola Peninsula. It is up to 7 km wide and has a depth of 200 to 300 metres. The Tuloma, Rosta ...
. ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' managed to pump about 60 tonnes of fuel oil from the wreck's fuel tanks.
In 2005, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' returned to Alaska to once again tow the single steel drilling caisson after
Devon Canada had selected the ''SDC'' over an artificial ice island to drill the first wildcat well in the Canadian Beaufort Sea in 17 years.
With the original Beaufort Sea offshore fleet disbanded and sold overseas, the oil company had to source the icebreaker all the way from
Murmansk
Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') i ...
to complete the one-day tow from Thetis Bay anchorage to the Paktoa C-60 drilling site.
In 2006, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' was chartered by
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...
together with a flotilla of other contracted icebreakers from Russia, Finland and Sweden to support the company's oil exploration activities in the Beaufort Sea. Although Shell did not manage to begin exploratory drilling until 2012, by which time ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' was no longer part of the support fleet, the initial plan would have brought together two key components of Gulf Canada's original Arctic drilling system developed and built in the early 1980s: the Conical Drilling Unit (CDU) ''
Kulluk'' and one of the Arctic Class 4 icebreakers designed to protect it from drifting ice during drilling operations. ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' returned to her home port, Murmansk, from the three-year deployment in the US waters in September 2008.
In late 2008, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' began towing the hull of the
Hutton TLP platform from Murmansk to
Cadiz, Spain, for rebuilding. The decommissioned
tension-leg platform
__NOTOC__
A tension-leg platform (TLP) or extended tension leg platform (ETLP) is a vertically moored floating structure normally used for the offshore production of oil or gas, and is particularly suited for water depths greater than 300 metres ...
had been acquired by
Sevmorneftegaz in 2002 and its 19,000-tonne
topsides
The topsides on a boat, ship, watercraft, or floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, is that part of the hull between the waterline and the deck.Rognaas, G., Xu, J., Lindseth, S., & Rosendahl, F. (2001). Mobile offshore base co ...
had already been transferred to a new ice-resistant production platform being built for the
Prirazlomnoye field in the Pechora Sea. While underway to
Lerwick
Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010.
Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland ...
for refueling, one of the tow lines connecting the 23,000-tonne platform hull to the two tugboats broke free, but was later reconnected. In the end, the hull was towed to
Cromarty Firth where it remained until it was towed to a scrapyard in 2021.
In August 2011,
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
(NSF) contracted ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' to support the annual break-in and resupply mission to
McMurdo Station
McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the Unit ...
in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
. The Russian icebreaker, which was already providing icebreaking support for the
Indian Antarctic Program
The Indian Antarctic Programme is a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional programme under the control of the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India. It was initiated in 1981 with the first ...
, would replace the Swedish icebreaker
''Oden'' following an announcement from the
Swedish Maritime Administration that the nation's most powerful icebreaker was direly needed in the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
during the northern hemisphere winter which coincided with the Antarctic resupply mission. At the time,
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...
had two heavy icebreakers dating back to the mid-1970s, and , but neither was operational: the former had been placed in a caretaker status in 2006 and the latter had suffered an engine casualty in 2010. After the one-year fixed contract worth $11,558,554, NSF and MSCO agreed to exercise the optional extension and ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' returned to McMurdo also in the following year.
In 2017, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' made three voyages to
Franz Josef Land
, native_name =
, image_name = Map of Franz Josef Land-en.svg
, image_caption = Map of Franz Josef Land
, image_size =
, map_image = Franz Josef Land location-en.svg
, map_caption = Location of Franz Josef ...
to transport construction material, equipment and spare parts, and food to the Arctic archipelago.
In recent years, ''Vladimir Ignatyuk'' has left its moorings in Murmansk only rarely. , the
Russian Maritime Register of Shipping
The Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) maintains a ship register of the Russian Federation, based in Saint Petersburg, and is a marine classification society. Its activities aim to enhance safety of navigation, safety of life at sea, se ...
has withdrawn its classification due to overdue survey.
See also
*
History of the petroleum industry in Canada (frontier exploration and development)
References
{{Icebreakers of Canada
Icebreakers of Russia
Ships built in British Columbia
1983 ships
Murmansk Shipping Company