Lessons From the Russian Fuel Tanker Resupply of Nome, Alaska

by Alison Weisburger Anyone following Alaskan news in the past few weeks has undoubtedly heard about the saga of the Russian fuel tanker Renda and its journey to deliver fuel to ice-bound Nome. For those who are not up to date on the story, it began back in November when a massive storm prevented Nome from receiving its last barge delivery of home heating fuel, diesel and gasoline for the winter.  By the time the weather calmed down, Nome was already iced-in and it was confirmed that there would be no final fall delivery. At that time, it looked certain that the community would run out of fuel in the spring.  

The only proven method to deliver fuel to Western Alaska in the winter is with aircraft hauling the fuel one airplane load at a time, consuming a vast amount of time and money. In response to the impending crisis, Sitnasuak Native Corporation, the native village corporation of Nome, was able to negotiate a deal with Vitus Marine LLC, an Alaskan-based shipping company, to secure the double hulled Russian tanker Renda to pick up and deliver the fuel.  This will be the first-ever winter fuel delivery from the water in Western Alaska. The tanker will be accompanied by a U.S. Coast Guard’s icebreaker, the Healy.

After traveling around 250 miles a day from a diesel fuel pickup in South Korea, then stopping in Dutch Harbor, Alaska to collect gasoline, the Renda is now on its way to Nome with the cutter Healy. Although the fuel delivery mission is not yet complete, there are already several lessons to take away from this incident about the realities of the Arctic environment, the necessity for advanced Arctic shipping capabilities, and the importance of multi-level cooperation. 

First, the storm in November that prevented a routine barge delivery to Nome serves as a reminder that the Arctic environment continues to be not only harsh, but also extremely volatile. The Arctic remains a place where weather patterns can have a severe impact on commercial activities and ultimately the fate of remote communities, and where there may not always be the technological capability to overcome these hardships. Even if adequate solutions are found to manage the consequences of unpredictable weather, as in this case, they are by no means straightforward or easy. The path through the Bering Sea to Nome will be dictated by day-to-day decision-making based on weather patterns and ice conditions, either of which can change on a dime and complicate the mission. That’s not to mention that any ship operating in the region must have a contingency plan in case of a fuel spill in ice-covered waters – which, if it occurred, would likely involve a complex clean-up operation and potentially devastating impacts on the fragile Arctic ecosystem. 

Another glaring lesson from this event, already commented on by Jason Evans and Alex DeMarban in the Alaska Dispatch and Mike Ahlers for CNN, is that it highlights the limitations of the current U.S. icebreaking capability. The U.S. Coastguard has three icebreakers, however the two Polar class icebreakers are currently out of commission.  The third, the Healy, while a larger and more modern design, is without the full capabilities of the others and does not have the space required for carrying fuel deliveries. Furthermore, its draft is too deep to get within one mile of Nome’s shore. Although the cutter was coincidentally on hand and able to help accompany the Renda, its home port is in Seattle and not in Alaska. The Nome mission has lengthened the deployment of the U.S. Coast Guard crew aboard the Healy, and delayed scheduled repairs to the ship – possibly affecting its scheduled missions for next summer. In contrast to the limited U.S. fleet, Russia has twenty-five icebreakers, Finland and Sweden have seven each, and Canada has six. 

Perhaps the most important lesson from this story, although subtle, is the successful cooperation that occurred between private and public entities, internationally, and intergovernmentally, that enabled the mission to go forward. It was largely the collaborative efforts of two private entities, Sitnasuak and Vitus Marine, to find a solution for the impending fuel shortage in Nome. They were able to collaborate across international borders in Russia, and then proceeded to get the U.S. government involved. Both the state government of Alaska and the federal government have a role in the mission through multiple departments including the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Alaska Department of Conservation. This event has highlighted that the Arctic region consists of a web of interconnected actors that often function on vastly different levels for diverse purposes, but nevertheless need to effectively collaborate when there is an urgent situation.

If the Renda reaches Nome and delivers the fuel successfully, as is planned by late Sunday or early Monday, it will be a cause for celebration.  Not only is this delivery critical for the community of Nome, but it also marks an historic accomplishment of winter shipping in Alaska. However, it should also serve as a time of reflection on the lessons that can be taken away from the mission and a reminder of what factors need to be taken into consideration in the future as activities in the Arctic region intensify. 

Canadian Icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent Heading South For Repairs

by Malte Humpert The flagship of Canada's aging fleet of icebreakers suffered mechanical failure to its center propeller on September 19 and has been anchored off the coast of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut since September 27. The 42-year old St-Laurent had been on a joint mission with the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy to conduct bathymetric surveys and mapping of the continental shelf beyond the 200-mile limit of the Exclusive Economic Zone. The collected data will be used to bolster Canada's claims for expansion of the limits of its continental shelf under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

According to CBC News, Brian LeBlanc explained that "upon further investigation with its autonomous underwater vehicle, it was determined there was a problem with the centre propeller. Unfortunately the on-site repairs were not successful, so we're faced with bringing the ship through the Northwest Passage and down to the south where we can put it into dry dock to complete the repair."

While Canadian officials claim that the gathering of seismic data had been completed before the breakdown occurred, scientists who were on board at the time stated that, "three-quarters of the way through the voyage we also encountered difficulty with the ship’s centre shaft propeller, and that prevented us from doing further seismic work."

The St-Laurent, built in 1969, is one of two the Canadian Coast Guard's only Heavy Arctic Icebreakers of the Canadian Coast Guard. [edit: please scroll to the end of the post for clarification]. In 1994 the St-Laurent, traveling together with the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea, became the first North American surface vessel to reach the North Pole.

The recent sidelining of the St-Laurent is emblematic of the aging icebreaker fleet of both Canada and the U.S. The St-Laurent experienced repeated propeller malfunctions during her first 25 years of service until a set of stainless steel propellers was installed in 2000. Last year the ship underwent repair for damage to one of its propeller shaft bearings. An extensive retrofit pushed the original decommissioning date from 2000 to 2017, when the $720 million polar-class icebreaker John G. Diefenbaker, is scheduled to enter into service.

The U.S., meanwhile, has yet to commission a replacement for its heavy icebreakers Polar Star and Polar Sea which entered service in 1976 and 1977. The Polar Sea has been sidelined with a complete engine failure since 2010 and the Polar Star is undergoing a four-year, $57 million retrofit to extend its lifespan by up to 10 years. The 12-year-old Healy is the only currently operational heavy icebreaker, but its icebreaking capabilities are limited and do not allow it to venture deep into the Arctic during winter or to perform icebreaking duties of Antarctica. While the Polar Star and Sea, powered by a combination of diesel engines and gas turbines, are built to easily break 6 feet of ice the diesel-only-powered Healy can only break ice up to 4 1/2 feet. 

The icebreaking capabilities of the USCG are so limited that since 2007 the Swedish icebreaker Oden, has been leased to conduct the annual supply run to the American research outpost in Antarctica at McMurdo Station.

Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, co-sponsored a bill that would keep the Polar Sea in service until the refurbishment of the Polar Star is completed in 2013. The USCG has been reluctant to invest $22 million for the repair of the ship's engines less than three years before its decommissioning date. Currently, the Polar Sea sits idle in dry dock in Seattle, WA and the USCG plans to decommission it by the end of the year. Begich and Cantwell argue that the U.S. cannot afford to rely entirely on the Healy to extend sovereignty into the Arctic and represent the country's interest in the High North. The construction of a new polar class icebreaker could take a decade and may cost as much as $1 billion.

The lack of U.S. Arctic capabilities was prominently noted in 2005 by the Committee on the Assessment of U.S. Coast Guard Polar Icebreaker Roles and Future Needs: "Operations and maintenance of the polar icebreaker fleet have been underfunded for many years, and the capabilities of the nation's icebreaking fleet have diminished substantially. Deferred long-term maintenance and failure to execute a plan for replacement or refurbishment [...] have place the national interests in the polar regions at risk. [...] Polar Icebreakers are essential instruments of U.S. national policy in the changing polar regions."

When the new polar-class icebreaker Diefenbaker and the refurbished Polar Star set sail for the Arctic in 2017 and 2013 respectively, they will encounter increasingly crowded waters. China's new $300 million icebreaker will enter into service by 2013 and officials declared that it needed "brothers and sisters." Russia, already the largest operator of nuclear-powered icebreakers, recently announced that the icebreaker Sovetsky Soyuz, which has been in dry dock since 2007, will be restored to service and undergo a $40 million overhaul. The retrofit is expected to be completed by 2014 when another nuclear-powered icebreaker Rossiya will head to the dry dock for refueling and repairs. 

Business is a boomin' if you are in the icebreaker repair and retrofit industry.

[update: 5.41pm EST] 
Shortly after this post was published The Arctic Institute received an email by the Canadian Coast Guard:

The Arctic Institute acknowledges, that the CCG classifies both the Louis S. St-Laurent and the  Terry Fox as heavy icebreakers and changed the article accordingly. The author, however, does believe that this classification overstates the capabilities of the vessel.

Modern icebreakers make use of the weight of the ship to rise up on top of the ice and then crush downward through it. This allows the weight of the ship to break the ice. The Terry Fox weighs about 60 percent less than the St-Laurent and about 80 percent less than the Healy, both of which are classified as Heavy Icebreakers. 

This rather large difference in weight, which naturally translates into a ship's icebreaking capabilities, raises questions about the Terry Fox's classification as a Heavy Icebreaker. In "Breaking Ice: Renewable Resource and Ocean Management in the Canadian North" Fikret Berkes et al. do indeed classify the Terry Fox as a Medium Icebreaker. 

[update: 10/17/11, 9.59pm EST]

The Arctic Institute received correspondance from Captain David Fowler of the CCGS Terry Fox clarifying the difference between displacement and gross tonnage. The Arctic Institute referenced the wrong measurement in compiling the table above. Below you can find the corrected version. Sorry.
Captain Fowler also stressed that "CCGS Terry Fox is build to a stronger standard than Louis S. St. Laurent with thicker steel in her hull. Because of her higher strength and significant power, she is classified in the Canadian Coast Guard Fleet as a heavy icebreaker." 

German Icebreaker "Polarstern" Returns from Arctic

by Malte Humpert The German research icebreaker "Polarstern" returned from its 26th Arctic expedition and is undergoing routine maintenance in its homeport of Bremerhaven. During its 21,000 km journey the vessel conducted research on the rate of ice melt around the north pole. Using a four-meter-long probe called "EM Bird" aerial measurements on ice thickness were conducted along a line of over 2,500 km. The researchers concluded that very little multi-year ice remains around the North Pole and average ice thickness only reached 90 centimeters.

The 30-year old flagship of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research had traveled to the North Pole twice before in 1991 and 2001. In contrast to the previous journeys the ship encountered very little multi-year ice and ice thickness decreased markedly. Only throughout the Canadian archipelago and near the Severnaya Zemlya island group in northern Siberia did the ship encounter significant amounts of older ice between 2 and 5 meters thick. The scientists also noted that formation of sea ice in September progressed slower than during previous years.

Researchers on the Polarstern also conducted research on the distribution of sunlight under the ice sheet using a remotely operated vehicle at depth of up to 100 meters. Their measurements showed that multi-year ice is more impervious to light than single-year ice. As the composition of Arctic ice changes in favor of single-year ice, the amount of light absorbed by the Arctic Ocean will increase. This may result in a warming of water near the surface. According to Prof. Ursula Schauer, director of the expedition, water temperatures at a depth of 10 meters were three degrees centigrade, too warm for new ice to form.The Polarstern is undergoing routine maintenance before departing on a voyage to Antarctica on October 28th. 

In the Pacific Ocean, meanwhile, the United States Coast Guard (USGS) Cutter Healy has embarked on its third scientific mission of the 2011 season. The icebreaker will conduct bathymetric and seismic surveys across more than 4,600 miles of Arctic seafloor. These surveys are part of the USGS's effort to map out the ocean floor north of Alaska. The data could potentially be used to file for the extension of the continental shelf once the U.S. ratifies the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The medium-size Healy is currently the only operational icebreaker suitable to sail in the high latitudes. On September 23rd, Alaskan Senator Mark Begich authored a bill which would revoke the decision to decommission the 35-year-old heavy ice-breaker Polar Star, the only asset in the Coast Guard's inventory suitable to sail through heavy ice conditions. Several non-Arctic states, such as China and South Korea, are expanding their Arctic resources and Russia announced plans to commission a number of new nuclear-powered icebreakers. The accelerated melting of Arctic sea ice is opening up resource development and shipping lanes and the ability to project national sovereignty in the High North may become increasingly important.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that September 2011 saw the second lowest average ice extent since satelite observations started in 1979. The September extent was 4.61 million square kilometers, about 310,000 square kilometers above the record average low of September 2007. According to the NSIDC the 2011 melt season did not see "a "perfect" storm of atmospheric and ocean conditions" that accelerate ice loss. While wind and ocean circulation patterns in 2011 were similar to four years ago, they were less strong and persistent.

The NSIDC states that despite the lack of "extreme weather conditions seen in 2007" his year’s melt season saw the continuous decline of multi-year ice, which helps to explain why ice extent did not recover. While first- and second-year ice composed 80 percent of the ice cover in March 2011, that figure was only 55 percent from 1980-2000. "Continued loss of the oldest, thickest ice has prevented any significant recovery of the summer minimum extent. In essence [even areas that] once were a refuge for older ice [have] become a graveyard."