State-owned oil giant Rosneft has towed an iceberg weighing over one million metric tons in the Arctic, the company's Vice President Andrei Shishkin said at the 13^th RAO/CIS Offshore 2017 International Conference and Exhibition for Oil and Gas Resource Development of the Russian Arctic and Continental Shelf. The iceberg weighs 13 times more than the one which sunk the Titanic.

RIA Novosti quotes Shishkin as saying: "A unique technology to change an iceberg's direction through external force has been tested in Russia for the first time. The company's experts have successfully towed an iceberg weighing over one million metric tons. This is the first such experience in the Russian Arctic and an outstanding event in the world. It should be mentioned for comparison's sake that the iceberg that sank the RMS Titanic weighed about 75,000 tons."

"Rosneft is working to develop and introduce new equipment and technologies for operations in extreme natural climate conditions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the development of the Arctic, in terms of technologies, new equipment and engineering, probably even compares with space exploration and, maybe even costs more," Shishkin noted.

According to the agency, members of a 2016 Rosneft expedition, aboard the icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn, towed icebergs in the Kara Sea on an experimental basis for the first time in Russian history. Many of these icebergs exceeded the icebreaker's dimensions ten times over.