[Picture] The world`s first two-way icebreaking oil tanker `VASILY DINKOV` built by SHI in 2007.

- The ships will be classified as `Arc-7`, the highest standard of ice-breaking cargo ship built in Korea.

- They will be capable of operating in extreme cold down to minus 45 degrees Celsius and will be able to break Arctic ice up to 1.4m thick.

- The contract for three ice-breaking tankers came from a European ship owner in July.

- Samsung Heavy Industries expects to win additional contracts for LNG carriers, container carriers, and ocean platforms this year.

For the second time this year, Samsung Heavy Industries has signed a shipbuilding contract for ice-breaking tankers.

The company announced on October 7th that it won a contract worth 440 million USD to build three ice-breaking tankers for a European ship owner. An contract for three ice-breaking tankers was also received from a different ship owner in July.

The 42,000DWT ice-breaking tankers will be 249m in length and 34m wide. When they are built, they will transfer crude oil produced in the Novy Port oil field near the Yamal peninsula of Russia to the ice-free harbor Murmansk.

The tankers are designed to break ice of 1.4m thickness at a speed of 3.5knot per hour and to withstand temperatures of minus 45 degrees Celsius. They will be classified as `Arc-7`, the highest standard of ice-breaking cargo ship built in Korea.

In 2005, Samsung Heavy Industries delivered three two-way ice-breaking oil tankers to Russia`s Sovcomflot, initiating a new era of ice-breaking cargo ship construction in Korea.

Normally, in the polar regions, an icebreaker breaks the ice with its bow to open up the waterway for crude oil tankers. Ice-breaking oil tankers that combine the two types of ship have been hailed as an innovation that dramatically increases efficiency.

So far, Samsung Heavy Industries has won contracts of up to 5.9 billion USD including this contract. A company source said: "We are also finalizing negotiations for LNG carriers, large-scale container carriers, and ocean platforms. We may win more contracts for ships in October."