A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker is cutting a path through icy seas for a Russian tanker carrying much-needed fuel for the iced-in Alaska city of Nome.
The 370-foot (113-meter) ship, hauling more than 1.3 million gallons (5 million liters) of fuel, is scheduled to arrive later Monday or Tuesday. It was less than 190 miles (305 kilometers) away on Saturday.
Video and still photo images released by the Coast Guard show the two vessels moving steadily through ice jammed seas.
"They’re navigating through ice right now, taking a direct route for now," said Jason Evans, the CEO of Sitnasuak Native Corp, one of the companies undertaking the delivery. "They considered going through patches where there might be thinner ice, but determined that that would have taken them on a longer route."
The city of about 3,500 people on the western Alaska coastline normally gets fuel by barge. But it didn’t get its last pre-winter fuel delivery because of a massive storm, and it could run out of crucial supplies before spring.
The Russian tanker came upon ice about a foot (30 centimeters) thick very early Friday near Nunivak Island, a large island in the eastern Bering Sea, the Coast Guard said.
The tanker is being shepherded by the Healy, the Coast Guard’s only functioning icebreaker — a ship of special design with a reinforced hull made to move through ice.
If the mission is successful, it will be the first time petroleum products have been delivered by sea to a Western Alaska community in winter.
Sitnasuak officials have said they settled on the Russian tanker delivery plan after determining it would be much less expensive and more practical than flying fuel into Nome. The vessel, which is certified to travel through ice 4 feet (1.2 meters) thick for long distances, normally delivers fuel to communities in the Russian Far East.
