A steel cutting ceremony marking the start of the construction of the pilot LNG tanker for Arctic LNG 2 project was held at Zvezda Shipyard in the Russian Far East on November 20.
The vessel was ordered and will be operated by Sovcomflot. The group has now 15 vessels of the series on order at Zvezda, the other 14 will be owned by SMART LNG, a joint venture between SCF and Novatek.
The tankers are a new generation of LNG carriers with the ice class notation Arc7. They will have a capacity of over 172,000 cub m, with 300 meters LOA and 48 meters beam. The vessels will be equipped with a 45 MWt engine and three Azipods.
According to Sovcomflot, all the tankers in the series will fly the Russian flag and crewed by Russian officers and sailors.
The pilot tanker is scheduled to be delivered in Q1, 2023.