Our Arctic Neighbors: Russia’s Rosneft gets first ice-class tanker

Spanish shipyard Factorias Vulcano, at the port of Vigo, has completed construction of the first ice-class tanker commissioned by Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. The 30,000-ton vessel, called the Arkhangelsk, will ship oil from the Timan Pechora province to Murmansk. The Arkhangelsk is designed to work in ice that is over a meter (3.3 feet) thick and has the capacity to ship 25,000 tons of oil.

Rosneft anticipates that the Arkhangelsk will ship 1.2 million tons (8.2 million boe) of oil annually to the Belokamenka floating oil terminal in Kola Bay. The company plans to add two vessels similar to the Arkhangelsk to its fleet by 2009.

­—Sarah Hurst