Designing new technological vessels for the Arctic shelfs: challenges and solutions.
Development of drilling and pipe-laying vessels for the Russian Arctic shelf is an extremely important and relevant problem due to the necessity to explore rich oil & gas fields located there. Such vessels will be very much in demand because it is expected that forthcoming years will see an intense exploration of the offshore oil & gas fields and, accordingly, construction of marine subsea pipelines both in Russia and in other countries. The paper describes the development of technological vessels intended to operate on the Russian Arctic shelf. It is absolutely necessary that Russia develop such vessels on its own because at the moment no country in the world can offer the ships which could operate in harsh weather and ice conditions.