Murmansk Branch News

The pilots of the Murmansk branch of FSUE "Rosmorport" provided pilotage and experimental placement of the Christophe de Margerie gas carrier in the Kildin Strait

The pilots of the FSUE "Rosmorport" Murmansk branch successfully provided pilotage and experimental placement of the Christophe de Margerie gas carrier (owned by the Sovcomflot group of companies) to the temporary roads transshipment complex (VRPK, project operator – Novatek-Western Arctic, LLC) of liquefied natural gas in the Kildin Strait of the Barents Sea.

The experimental production involved the Ob icebreaker and the Yuribey icebreaker tug (FSUE "Atomflot"), four craft tugs with a total capacity of almost 16 MW, and three small vessels for winding up warps on buoy moorings of the VRPK.

The goal of the test mooring is to check the readiness of temporary roads transshipment complex for the receipt and mooring of vessels at the road steads of the complex, and assessment of corrective measures for the optimization of operations for vessels mooring LNG carriers to the roadstead places VRPK and to ensure safe anchorage on them.

Thanks to the coordinated work of pilots of the Murmansk branch, the crew of the gas carrier and the crews of all vessels involved in the operation the test mooring was successful. The next day, the Christophe de Margerie successfully moored, left the Kildin Strait, and proceeded to the seaport of Sabetta.

The Christophe de Margerie is 299 meters long, 50 meters wide and has a draft of 11.8 meters. The deadweight of the vessel is 80.2 thousand tons, and the gross tonnage is 128.8 thousand tons, the cargo capacity is 172 600 cubic meters. The gas carrier has an ice class of Arc7 and is able to overcome ice up to 2.1 meters thick.