Coast Guard seeking icebreaker comments
Determining scope of EIS for construction of up to six polar icebreakers; looking for proposals for three heavy icebreakers Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The U.S. Coast Guard is in the process of gathering public comments for the scoping of an environmental impact statement for the potential construction of up to six polar icebreakers. The comment period ends on June 29. In parallel, in March the Coast Guard issued a request for proposal for the advance procurement and detailed design for a heavy polar icebreaker, with options for the design and construction of up to three of these vessels. The agency then wants to acquire three additional medium icebreakers in a few years’ time.
Two operational icebreakers Currently the Coast Guard only operates two polar capable icebreakers: the Healy, a medium duty icebreaker, much used as a base for polar research, and the Polar Star, which is a heavy icebreaker but is 41 years old and nearing the end of its operational life. A third icebreaker, the Polar Sea, sister ship to the Polar Star, is laid up in port and has become a source of spare parts for the Polar Star. By comparison, Russia has 27 government owned or operated icebreakers in use, including four heavy nuclear-powered icebreakers.
The Coast Guard has said that it needs six new icebreakers to ensure year-round access to polar regions and to provide rescue capabilities in ice-covered waters. Icebreakers enable the agency to carry out its duties in the Arctic and Antarctic, including defense readiness, treaty enforcement, coastal security, support for maritime safety and support for scientific research.
There has been a multiyear debate over whether and how to replace the Coast Guard’s aging icebreaker fleet. Much of that debate has revolved around the cost and means of icebreaker acquisition.
Construction of first vessel According to a report to Congress issued in April by the Congressional Research Service, the Coast Guard wants to start construction of the first of the new heavy icebreakers in fiscal year 2019, with the vessel entering service in 2023. The icebreaker program has received about $359 million in funding through fiscal year 2018, with $300 million of this coming via the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding account and the remainder from the Coast Guard’s acquisition account. The Coast Guard has requested a further $750 million in funding for fiscal year 2019.
The report says that the concept is to use a consistent design for the three heavy icebreakers, an approach that would spread the design costs across multiple vessels and allow lessons learned from the construction of the first vessel to be applied to the construction of the remaining vessels. Thus, although there have in the past been estimates of around $1 billion for the construction of a single heavy icebreaker, the Coast Guard has suggested that the average cost of each of the three icebreakers could come in at around $700 million.
Cost reduction The report says that in April the Government Accountability Office announced that the Coast Guard had revised its estimated costs downwards, now suggesting that the first icebreaker could be built for around $900 million, a cost level that implies an average cost of $600 million for each for the three vessels. On that basis, existing funding for the program plus the additional $750 million that the Coast Guard has requested could more than pay for the acquisition of the first of the icebreakers, the report says.
The reduction in estimated costs relates to the use of existing icebreaker designs as a basis for a new design, and a higher reliance on civilian commercial shipbuilding specifications rather than military specifications, the report says.
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