First ice-breaking LNG carrier named

Christophe de Margerie, the world’s first ice-breaking LNG tanker has officially been named on June 3, at the Bronka deepwater port in St Petersburg.

The vessel will bear the name of Christophe de Margerie, the former Total CEO, who died in a plane crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport in 2014.

The tanker has been designed for year-round transportation of LNG in the severe environment of the Kara Sea as part of the Yamal LNG project.

This project allows for the development of the Yuzhno Tambeiskoyegas condensate field and the construction of a plant with a capacity of 16.5 million tons of LNG per year.

Christophe de Margerie is the prototype for a series of 15 LNG carriers, which are planned to be constructed for the Yamal project. The vessel was commissioned by Sovcomflot at the end of March 2017 following her successful ice trials in the Arctic Ocean.

The vessel, capable of transporting 172,600 cubic meters of the chilled fuel has been assigned an ice class Arc7 and is capable of sailing through ice up to 2.1 meters thick.

Russia’s Novatek and France’s Total, along with Chinese partners CNPC and China’s Silk Road Fund, expect the first shipment from the $27 billion Yamal LNG project in October this year.