Russia’s government has awarded Mammoet the contract to raise the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk after negotiations with the preferred bidder broke down over financing and safety concerns.
The submarine, which sank with crew after an explosion on 18 August last year, is estimated to weigh more than 15,000t. It lies at a depth of 108m in the Barents Sea.
International Kursk Consortium (IKC) had been selected as preferred bidder. It had proposed using Thialf, the world’s biggest crane barge, but its request for more time to prepare for the project was turned down.
IKC, which consisted of Heerema Maritime Contractors (owner of Thialf), Smit Tak and Halliburton, was told on 15 May that it would not be awarded the salvage contract.
On the following day maritime haulage specialist Smit offered its services instead to rival bidder Mammoet and the two Dutch companies decided to team up. On 21 May they were able to announce that their joint bid, based on Mammoet’s concept, had won.
Mammoet-Smit plan to mobilise quickly to begin work in mid June and complete the salvage operation before the end of September. Calm weather is crucial to their plan.
Between 20 and 24 computer-controlled hydraulic strand jacks are to be mounted on one of Smit’s Giant pontoons. These lifting units are able to compensate for the action of the waves, with each one regulating its own lifting power, Mammoet said.
The strand jacks are taken from the Mammoet Sliding Gantry MSG 50, the massive lifting device that once again shows its versatility, having already been used as a crane and a lifting gantry on previous projects.
Divers will cut off the nose of the submarine where the live torpedoes are located, and then drill into the hull to fix lifting cables. The plan is to suspend the submarine just below the pontoon and to travel with it 100km from its current position in the Barents Sea to dry dock in Murmansk.
Once in dry dock, any corpses that can be found will be retrieved. The bodies of 12 of the 118 crew were removed last year by a bungled Russian salvage mission. Approximately 60 others are considered likely to have been incinerated when the front compartments exploded.
It is still not known what caused the explosion.
Losing bidder IKC released a statement on 17 May which said: ‘The consortium has been negotiating with the Russian government since late last year but due to delays in securing finance from the Russian government and other contractual conditions, achieving the schedule for completing the recovery of the Kursk this year was considered no longer feasible.
‘The proposed project concept was based on international safety standards and requires careful preparation. Heerema, Smit and Halliburton would not make concessions to these requirements. The companies would not compromise the safety of its crews and equipment, nor of the wreckage, its victims or the environment in order to rush for this year’s completion as based on the concept as [originally] proposed by the IKC.
‘The adapted schedule of the IKC envisaged commencement of preparatory work this summer and the actual lifting of the submarine from the seabed in June 2002 with the use of Heerema’s Thialf, the largest crane vessel in the world. The IKC regrets that this time schedule formed an insurmountable obstacle for the award of the contract.’ Mammoet said that it would observe ‘comprehensive safety measures throughout the salvage of the Kursk ’.
