Turkey-based Sefine Shipyard, also known as Sefine Denizcilik and Tersanecilik, has reportedly emerged as the winner for a Russian tender to construct an 18MW icebreaker for the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic.
According to the Russian language daily newspaper Kommersant, the company will execute the construction for around $180.3m (RUR13.3bn).
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Sefine Shipyard was the sole bidder for the tender, which was launched by Rosmorrechflot, and submitted a single application stating the maximum contract price of the same amount.
The concerned vessel will be an Icebreaker 7 class ship as per the Russian classification system.
A source familiar with Turkish shipbuilding informed the newspaper that the shipyard has the capacity to execute such orders independently.
Furthermore, sources said that the cost of constructing such a vessel will come to roughly $204m-$217m (RUR15-16bn) or even higher in the case of Russian firms.
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By GlobalDataIn the past years, Turkey-based shipyards have turned out to be Russia’s unexpected competitors, the report said.
In 2018, Turkey’s Kuzey Star Shipyard constructed Russia’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fuelled Ro-Ro vessel for FSUE Rosmorport in Istanbul.
Marshal Rokossovsky, the 200m-long Ro-Ro ship was built under a cooperation between the Kuzey Star Shipyard and LLC Nevsky Shipyard.
The vessel was launched in Istanbul last August.
The Russian company has deployed the vessel on the Ust-Luga-Baltiysk (Kaliningrad seaport) line.
In addition, Rosatom and Kuzey Star Shipyard signed a $68m (RUR5bn) contract for the construction of a floating dock for nuclear icebreakers in June.
Russian shipyards did not go in for the contract as they were only ready to take on the project at a price of $115m (RUR8.5bn).
Recently, Russia revealed plans to construct its first fleet of LNG-powered icebreakers.
This marks a return ‘to an idea that was put on hold’ for the country, which owns the world’s only fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers.
