Michail Ulyanov

The "Michail Ulyanov" was the first of two new Aker Arctic DAS™ double acting shuttle tankers for the Russian Arctic offshore in the Pechora Sea. As a result of a unique collaboration involving an overseas designer and a Russian shipbuilder, the 70,000 dwt Mikhail Ulyanov is owned by OAO Sovcomflot and was delivered by OAO Admiralty Shipyards in early 2010. The state of the art vessel, designed completely by Aker Arctic Technology, would ply one of the harshest of trades, shuttling oil from the Prirazlomnoye oil field development in the Pechora Sea to a Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) unit moored off Murmansk.

Sister ship Kirill Lavrov was also to service an area which is covered in ice during the entire winter navigation season. During hard winter seasons temperatures can fall as low as minus 40 C° and ice can form over 1.2 metres in thickness. Hull structures for ice strengthening of the ships was in accordance with Russian Maritime Register of Shipping ice category Arc 6, with the stern of the vessel strengthened for bow design ice loads for double acting operation. All equipment are designed to be exposed to ambient temperature of minus 40ºC.

The underwater hull form incorporates an icebreaking bow for operation ahead in young ice and thin first year ice conditions. The bow shape is derived from a compromise of both ice operational performance as well as open water sea-keeping and performance.

The propulsion solution comes from ABB Marine, in the shape of twin Azipods®. The azimuthing thrusters enable the ships to penetrate cross ridged ice when running astern with a continuous slow speed, where conventional ships ram when running ahead. "Mikhail Ulyanov" and "Kirill Lavrov" are able to achieve 3 knots speed astern in first year level ice, 1.2 m thickness with 0.2 m of snow layer and 3 knots speed ahead in first year level ice, 0.5 m thickness.

They also need to shuttle at speeds of up to 16 knots, with occasional voyages to Atlantic destinations. The bridges have been outfitted with state of the art equipment, supplied by Transas. The electronics will include communication equipment for GMDSS area A4, two radars for extreme temperatures, two ECDIS 3000-I systems, six information displays with NaviConning, Automatic Identification System, Voyage Data Recorder, log, and echosounder.