The United States purchased for $125 million a ship that Shell used for drilling oil in the Arctic, spent another $25 million refurbishing it, and renamed it Storis because the largest economy on the planet can no longer build an icebreaker on its own.

Written by Douglas Avila

Published on 26/05/2026 at 07:07

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The icebreaker Storis, which the United States redeployed to the Arctic after more than twenty years without such a ship in the fleet, did not come out of any shipyard: it was the Aiviq, the vessel that Shell used to support oil drilling in the ice, purchased used by the Coast Guard for 125 million dollars.

At the end of May, the Storis returned to Seattle after 36 days patrolling the Bering Sea. It was the first American icebreaker winter mission in those waters in a long time, with four diesel engines totaling 22,500 horsepower to carve a path through nearly a meter of ice at five knots.

The crew faced what Commander Corey Kerns called a clear statement of the country’s determination. The detail that almost no one mentions is where this ship really came from.

From Shell ship to icebreaker Storis

The Aiviq was built between 2011 and 2012 at a Louisiana shipyard for Edison Chouest, with a very specific function: to support the platforms that Shell was trying to establish in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas to extract oil from the Arctic. The debut was almost an embarrassment. In December 2012, towing the Kulluk platform in six-meter waves, the cable broke and the ship lost propulsion, in an episode that helped bury Shell’s oil dream in the region.

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A power that forgot how to build ships

This is the part that seems most revealing to me. In 1975, the United States led the world’s shipbuilding. Today it accounts for about 0.13% of it, plummeting to the 19th position worldwide, while China alone delivers more than half of all commercial ships in the world. We usually measure the power of a navy by the number of aircraft carriers, but the tougher measure is simply putting steel in the water at scale.

It’s no wonder that Asian shipyards, like South Korea’s Hanwha, which are already taking giant orders for gas ships, occupy the space that the American industry has been leaving empty decade after decade. Building a polar icebreaker, which requires a thick hull and ice engineering, is precisely the kind of work that has become too difficult for those who have lost practice.

Why the next icebreakers will be born in Finland

The solution found says it all. In mid-May, Davie closed a contract for 3.5 billion dollars for five new Arctic Security Cutters. Three will be built in Texas, but the first two will come from Helsinki, Finland, a country of just over five million inhabitants that alone designs 80% of the world’s icebreakers. The first delivery is only scheduled for 2028.

The Coast Guard’s own commander, Admiral Kevin Lunday, was honest about the reason, saying they needed to start by leveraging Finland’s proven capability before bringing more work back to the United States. In plain terms, outsourcing abroad to relearn at home, within a polar cooperation agreement that the country signed with the Finns and Canadians in 2024.

American icebreaker and Canadian icebreaker in joint exercise in the Arctic — In Arctic maneuvers, the United States Coast Guard often relies on allies like Canada, which owns its own icebreakers.

Meanwhile, the entire American polar fleet can be counted on one hand: the heavy Polar Star, the medium Healy, and now the adapted Storis. I imagine the scene of one of the world’s largest economies relying on a trio to maintain a presence in an ocean that is becoming both a commercial route and a strategic board. It’s the same country that keeps aircraft carriers like the USS Gerald R. Ford at sea for months on end, but that can’t independently produce a ship capable of breaking ice.

I confess that, when putting together this timeline, what remains is not the image of a defeated superpower, but rather that of a giant improvising. Buying used, refurbishing, outsourcing, and still arriving late in 2028 is the portrait of an industry that shrank while no one was watching. I’m curious to know if you see this maneuver as a sign of weakness or as pure pragmatism from those who have no time to waste.

In your opinion, can it still be called a maritime power when it needs to buy used ships and have the rest built across the Atlantic?

The United States purchased for $125 million a ship that Shell used for drilling oil in the Arctic, spent another $25 million refurbishing it, and renamed it Storis because the largest economy on the planet can no longer build an icebreaker on its own.

From Shell ship to icebreaker Storis

A power that forgot how to build ships

Why the next icebreakers will be born in Finland

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The United States purchased for $125 million a ship that Shell used for drilling oil in the Arctic, spent another $25 million refurbishing it, and renamed it Storis because the largest economy on the planet can no longer build an icebreaker on its own.

From Shell ship to icebreaker Storis

A power that forgot how to build ships

Why the next icebreakers will be born in Finland

With billions in loans, China is rebuilding Nigeria’s railway network from scratch, abandoning the British colonial tracks that have turned to scrap and creating a corridor of over 1,300 km to take the load off the roads of Africa’s largest economy.

Forget petroleum-based asphalt: a Scottish company transforms 684,000 plastic bottles into one kilometer of road that is 60% more resistant and up to 10 times more durable, and the technology has already started replacing traditional asphalt in more than 30 countries.

China is building an artificial island in the middle of the sea, covering 20 km², to construct the largest offshore airport in the world, the Dalian Jinzhouwan. This $4.3 billion project is anchored on more than 3,000 pillars embedded in the rock beneath the ocean and is scheduled to open in 2035.

Austrian engineers have developed an inflatable concrete technology that transforms flat slabs into domes using only air pressure, eliminating scaffolding and temporary forms, and potentially changing the way bridges, tunnels, and curved roofs are constructed worldwide.

A robot named Walter does the work of five bricklayers per hour and can save the construction industry, where the average age of professionals is 46 years and almost no one wants to learn the trade anymore, in the United Kingdom.

Spain installs two giant pipelines 2.2 km off the coast to draw water from the Mediterranean and supply a megafacility capable of producing 200 million liters of drinking water per day.

Without wheels, iron, or machines, teams of up to 32 men would have dragged 2.3-ton blocks over wet sand up a ramp embedded in the pyramid itself, raising the structure in 20 to 27 years, according to a new computer model that reignites a millennia-old debate.

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A 400-meter colossus powered by natural gas has just set sail from Shanghai to Europe, carrying over 24,000 containers. It is the world’s largest dual-fuel container ship and can cross the planet without refueling even once.

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