Offshore staff
HELSINKI, Finland – Aker Arctic Technology has introduced a heavy duty version of its Oblique Icebreaker vessel designed to break through ice 1.5 m (5 ft) thick at a speed of 5 knots.
The ARC 100 HD design measures 98 m (322 ft) long by 26 m (85 ft) wide and will offer 190 metric tons of bollard pull in open water, or twice the pull of the ARC 100.
The first Oblique Icebreaker, a 76-m (249-ft) ARC 100, is under construction and scheduled for delivery to Russia’s Ministry of Transport in early 2014. The asymmetric three-thruster vessel is being built through a collaborative agreement between Kaliningrad’s OJSC Yantar and Helsinki’s Arctech yards.
The ARC 100 HD will be dynamically positioned, enabling it to “spin on the spot” to widen channels and to assist during ice field directional changes, Aker Arctic said.
The company says the Oblique Icebreaker series is designed to provide both ice management and oil spill response operations as the pace of exploration and production in the Arctic picks up.
“Instead of the vulnerable rubber arm sometimes seen in oil spill response operations, the ARC 100 HD’s vertical hull side itself will act as a sweep arm up to 60 m (197 ft) across in heavy waves,” Aker Arctic said. The vessel will also feature a skimmer system, including a side door, effective in-built brush skimmers/collector tanks for oil separation, recovered oil transfer pumps, and a discharge pump.”
05/10/2013
