"Star". From tankers to aircraft carriers!
Literally the other day, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Oleg Ryazantsev said that Zvezda will sign 60 contracts for the construction of new ships in the next five months. And this is despite the fact that in the order book of this company there are already 26 contracts - not potential, but quite real contracts, under which payments are already being made, work is under way, and so on.
True, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov announced a slightly different figure:
Probably, such a discrepancy is due to the fact that the contract can be concluded both on one ship, and immediately on the whole series. Therefore, it would probably be more correct to count not contracts, but the number of ordered vessels. And here the number 118, and in relation to the ships with a payload of up to 100 thousand tons, causes legitimate respect.
Also, these days at the shipyard another important event took place - the Chinese partners handed over the floating dock to the Star, which is necessary for the completion of some ships. It will allow you to work with objects up to 300 meters in length, and this is the lion’s share of all projects implemented there.
And by the end of 2019, the Bolshoy Kamen is planning to complete construction of the largest dry dock in Russia. After this work is completed, the construction of truly huge vessels will be possible there, up to 485 meters in length. At the present time, the largest ships in the world are almost not built, and what is there can be literally counted on the fingers.
The shipyard has a powerful Goliath crane. A huge colossus weighing 4 000 tons is capable of lifting a weight of 1200 tons, which allows to significantly simplify the assembly process, literally “making up” the vessel under construction from already almost finished blocks. There are also “small” taps. Although it is difficult to say whether this word is suitable for the Ural giants, designed for 320 tons of payload.
In general, the technical and technological state of the enterprise already does not cause any special complaints. And this was one of the reasons why the nuclear-powered icebreaker Leader, or even a whole series of such ships, seems to be built on the Star. Although with the "Leader", of course, everything is not very simple. But this is a topic for another conversation.
In general, you need to understand that the shipyard under construction (and already working) is not a clean “remake”, which was built on the shore of the first bay that came across. The Zvezda plant, even before the start of this ambitious project, was the largest ship repair company in the Far East. Moreover, he specialized specifically in servicing Pacific vessels fleet, including surface and submarine ships with a nuclear power plant. For this reason, even in the post-Soviet years, the city of Bolshoi Kamen was a closed administrative-territorial entity (ZATO), and visiting it was not so simple.
That is, in this case, we have a full set of necessary competencies - both traditional and acquired. And it is very likely that, as a result, Russia will receive a truly powerful shipbuilding center, both technical, technological and scientific components of which will meet the most advanced requirements.
The main activity of the seaside shipyard at the moment is the construction of tankers. These are oil tankers and gas carriers, both in the standard version and in the reinforced ice class. In the future, one can also expect certification of an enterprise for the construction of “chemical tankers” - tankers designed for the transport of aggressive chemicals and compounds. And this is not surprising, because among the main shareholders and investors of the company are Rosneft and Novatek.
But with a high degree of probability, we can assume that, in time, the Zvezda can take over the implementation of major military contracts. The shipyard's capacities are suitable for the construction of large surface ships of the type “destroyer”, “large anti-submarine ship”, “cruiser”, and in the near future, after the delivery of the above-mentioned dry dock, they will also be suitable for the construction of aircraft carriers. And this is very important for our country - no matter how urgent the question is whether we need aircraft carriers at all, we should still have a fundamental opportunity to build them.
Now, it seems, we will be able to completely replace Ukraine in this matter. Yes, and to the Chinese to bow, as suggested by some, do not have to go.
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