US Coast Guard to acquire an icebreaker

The Aiviq at Davis
The icebreaker Aiviq during refueling operations at Davis...photo by Kirk Yatras via the Australian Antarctic Divison.

The US Coast Guard, faced with delays in getting new polar icebreakers constructed--the Polar Security Cutter program--is proposing to acquire the commercial icebreaker Aiviq from a unit of Edison Chouest Offshore...the company operating the Nathaniel B. Palmer and the Laurence M. Gould. The official procurement announcement (updated 4 March 2024) is here on sam.gov.

Aiviq was commissioned in 2012 and was originally chartered by Shell for work offshore of northern Alaska. More recently it was used by the Australian program to resupply its stations in 2021-22 and 2022-23 due to delays in availability of their new supply vessel. Reports are that it will take several years to refit the vessel for Coast Guard service.

Two good references: first, this 5 March gCaptain article...and this Wikipedia article about the Aiviq which I have edited.