ST.PETERSBURG, September 22. /TASS/. The Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg in northwest Russia on Friday floated out the Sibir nuclear-powered icebreaker of Project 22220, which is designed for transporting cargos via the Northern Sea Route, a TASS correspondent reported.

"Thank you for your hard work and for the rebirth of the sector. Sibir has its predecessor - the icebreaker that was commissioned in 1977 and has already seen long service. Its absolute record was set in May when it reached the North Pole. I wish today’s Sibir to also break the record," Director General of the Rosatom state corporation, Alexei Likhachev, said.

President of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Alexei Rakhmanov said the Arctic exploration is a challenging mission, but the plant’s employees have been working hard. "I’m sure that today we will make another step forward for developing the Arctic and the Northern Sea Route," he said.

The first serial-produced Project 22220 nuclear-powered icebreaker Sibir was laid down in May 2015 and is set to be delivered in 2020.

Under a contract with Rosatomflot, the national operator of the nuclear-powered fleet, the Baltic Shipyard is building three nuclear icebreakers of this Project: the Arktika, the Sibir and the Ural. The technical design of these nuclear-powered icebreakers has been developed by the Iceberg Central Design Bureau.