Shuttle tanker Timofey Guzhenko delivers 80-millionth ton of crude oil from the Varandey project to Murmansk

On August 7, 2021, the Arctic shuttle tanker Timofey Guzhenko discharged at the port of Murmansk the milestone 80-millionth tonne of crude oil shipped from the Varandey oil terminal operated by LUKOIL.

This shipment became the 1,159th since cargo operations at the Varandey terminal began in June 2008. From this beginning, all oil shipped from Varandey is transported to the port of Murmansk by three of SCF’s 70,000-dwt Arctic shuttle tankers (ice class Arc6): Vasily Dinkov; Kapitan Gotsky, and Timofey Guzhenko.

The project's fixed offshore ice-resistant off-loading terminal (FOIROT) is located beyond the Polar Circle, in the Barents Sea, and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the northernmost oil terminal operating year-round. Its launch in 2008 has allowed transshipping crude oil in the Arctic year-round for the first time in history.

The project's success depends upon its effective logistics model, which involved designing and building a series of large-capacity tankers capable of operating in difficult ice conditions without icebreaking assistance, a unique feature for this period.

In 2011, Sovcomflot received a Russian Government award for science and technology, for the development and industrial commissioning of innovative solutions to establish a transport system for the Varandey project in the Arctic Ocean.

All three tankers operate under the Russian flag, sail with Russian crews, and have St. Petersburg as their port of registry.