(Image Source: United State Coast Guard)

BY MADISON MACK

ANCHOR ANTHONY MARTINEZ

After a month-long journey, the Russian oil tanker Renda is finally delivering some peace of mind to the people of the Alaskan city Nome. MSNBC reports.  

“The Russian tanker came upon ice about a foot thick in the Bering Sea and a US Coast Guard icebreaker is creating a path through the ice for the tanker which left Russia in December...”

An earlier barge delivery of 1.6 million failed after a fierce hurricane-strength winter storm blocked it from reaching the city. Nome eventually became iced in and inaccessible by road, leaving it with a dwindling fuel supply.

A member of the Coast Guard says Nome needs the fuel to power the city’s heavy equipment -- like the ones that keep the runways clear, the fire trucks running, and the school operating.

“...but if they don't get this fuel in what’s going to happen is by March their going to run out and the conditions to try and deliver it then will be even more difficult.”

The delivery is the first of its kind in Western Alaska. It is only possible because of a collaboration with the Coast Guard and its only operating polar icebreaker, the Healy. Military.com explains the quote “art and science” behind cutting through four-feet-thick sheets of ice. (Coast Guard News)

“Healy is designed with a rounded, blunted bow that enables it to ride up on top of the ice. As the bow raises up and the stern sinks below the water, the force of buoyancy acting on the submerged portion of the stern creates a lever-like action bringing Healy’s 16,000 tons down onto the ice and breaking it.”

The icebreaker’s hull then helped create an open area on its trail, making way for the tanker vessel Renda. Without this delivery, the alternate plan would have required flying the fuel in on hundreds of flights and would have pushed gas prices near $9 a gallon. A writer for Anchorage Daily News notes Nome isn’t the only city lacking fuel security.

“For delivery to small communities upriver, fuel must be reloaded again into smaller river barges. Loading and unloading three times is one reason gasoline costs $7 and $8 a gallon in many villages. Can we do something about that? … we can make the system more efficient with selective and strategic improvements in infrastructure, such as docks.

It will take Renda up to five days to unload its cargo of 1.3 million gallons of petroleum products.