Global warming, Russian exports and Chinese ambitions fuel global interest in the Northern Sea Route

Global warming, publicized by environmentalists, the raw material orientation of Russian exports and the growing ambitions of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region are fueling world interest in the Northern Sea Route. “Vlast” found out what was preventing it from becoming an alternative to the Suez Canal.

In Soviet times, the Northern Sea Route was in demand - most goods to the Far East were imported from the middle zone or imported in transit from Murmansk (pictured)

Photo: Kommersant / Pavel Kassin

In the 1970s, it was hoped that the Arctic fleet serving the Northern Sea Route would consist of 12 icebreakers. Now there are only six of them left

Photo: Kommersant / Konstantin Kutsillo

The Northern Sea Route has been actively used since the 1960s for northern deliveries to Arctic settlements, delivery of scientific expeditions and supply of military facilities.

Shipowners are frightened by high tariffs for ship navigation, which are associated with the need for icebreaker support along the Northern Sea Route.

Photo: Kommersant / Vasily Maximov

Since 2013, Chinese ships began making commercial voyages along the Northern Sea Route.

Photo: Reuters

Alexandra Romanycheva

Over the past 50 years, the average annual temperature in the Arctic has risen by about four degrees. The summer of 2013 was the warmest in seven years, and 2014 was the hottest in world history, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If such trends continue, then by 2021 the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will be open to shipping eight months a year, and maritime traffic through the Arctic will increase almost tenfold. This forecast was given by the captain of the Russian fleet of nuclear icebreakers Valentin Dayants. However, not everyone believes in natural anomalies. “I wouldn’t say that it has warmed up. The cycle is about 5-7 years. Therefore, if this year it was easier, then next year it may be different,” says Sergei Bondarev, head of the fleet department of the Murmansk Arctic Geological Exploration Expedition. “There may be less ice in area, but bottlenecks, for example the Vilkitsky Strait between Taimyr and Severnaya Zemlya, are still clogged. This means that it is difficult to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of transportation in the next 10-15 years, which means that some "A breakthrough increase in traffic is unlikely. There is a global warming trend, but it is much slower than it might seem," says Alexey Kokorin, head of the climate program at WWF Russia.

Increased oil and gas production in the Arctic may also contribute to the growth of cargo transportation in the northern direction. According to the Ministry of Transport, in 2013, 3.9 million tons of cargo were transported along the Northern Sea Route. The launch of Yamal LNG, a joint project of NOVATEK (60%), French Total (20%) and Chinese CNPC (20%), and the construction of the Sabetta port on the Yamal Peninsula in 2017 should add another 16.5 million tons to this amount. year. In addition, by 2016, Gazprom Neft plans to increase oil exports from the Novoportovskoye field by 5.5 million tons of oil per year. True, today's oil price can put an end to not only oil production on the shelf, but also maritime transportation, since the extraction of raw materials in many fields is simply becoming unprofitable.

In August 2013, the Chinese vessel Yong Sheng of COSCO Shipping made its first commercial voyage from Dalian, China to Rotterdam, Holland. The journey took 33 days, two weeks less than the usual 48-day journey through the Suez Canal, the most popular route for shipping goods from Shanghai to Rotterdam. Russian experts and politicians immediately started talking about launching regular commercial flights from Asia to Europe. At Transport Week in Moscow in December 2014, presidential aide Igor Levitin optimistically stated that the Northern Sea Route is a future transit route. However, in 2014, transit cargo traffic decreased by 77%: the volume of transit cargo transported along the Northern Sea Route amounted to only 274 thousand tons, according to data for December 2014, while in 2013 1 million 176 thousand tons were transported.

According to Bestway Development company representative Li Bin, Chinese businesses have an interest in this area, but they are confused by the state of the infrastructure. “If you send cargo through the Suez Canal, then ships along the route can call at the ports of Malaysia, for example, but on the Northern Sea Route there are only Russian ports. The population in those areas is small, the amount of cargo is small, and the economic efficiency of such transportation is still in question. How As soon as there is a sufficient amount of cargo, there will be transportation,” Li Bin assures.

There is no doubt that the Northern Sea Route will be used for transit, but it will be a seasonal alternative to the Suez Canal

The Northern Sea Route has been actively used since the 1960s, when the first nuclear-powered icebreaker for civilian use, Lenin, was built. Its main function at that time was northern delivery to populated areas of the Arctic, delivery of scientific expeditions, supply of military facilities with equipment and food. “The first acquaintance with the Arctic is impressive: when you pass the Kara Gate and find yourself in the ice, it is unforgettable. Ice, bears, a horizon that is always free, expeditions,” says Vladimir Kondratyev, chief mechanic of the nuclear icebreaker “Lenin.” “From 1969 to 2000 "I was in the Arctic almost all the time and sailed on icebreakers. Political formations changed, the economy changed, the tasks assigned to nuclear icebreakers changed. And all the time it was connected with the Northern Sea Route."

An icebreaker with a nuclear reactor provides greater autonomy and lower fuel consumption than diesel icebreakers. It tested technologies for operating nuclear installations and navigating ships along the entire Northern Sea Route through the ports of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, the ports of Dikson and Dudinka and in the Yenisei Bay area, the port of Tiksi in the Laptev Sea, the port of Pevek in the East Siberian Sea and the port of Provideniya on the Chukotka Peninsula. In 1989, 32 years after its launch, the icebreaker "Lenin" was mothballed; now it stands at the pier of the Murmansk sea station as a museum, where Kondratiev works.

Since there were no analogues for the reactor installation, according to Kondratyev, the employees wrote the technology for equipment repair and operation themselves. “When I came to the icebreaker, the simulator I had was the control room of the reactor installation. At the operating reactor, I trained under the supervision of more experienced comrades. For Europe, this method is unrealistic, they first need to train people and then design the ship. For us, this was all solved using the method extreme approach, but quite successfully,” recalls Kondratiev. No university trained operators to work on a transport ship, so they took people from the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant and the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute. Navigation schools began to train specialists only in the late 1970s.

According to Kondratyev, now few people want to go to the Arctic, since graduates of maritime schools hope to see the world, and on the icebreaker there is only “the route of the Northern Sea Route, Dikson, Pevek and a lot of bears.” He says that in the 1970s, the master received the same amount as the captain of a nuclear submarine: “We worked for four months and rested for four months, and the pay was such that I went on a voyage, and we immediately bought a Zhiguli and for four the whole family went on vacation for months. Now we are in the Rosatom system, and once a year the captains and chief engineers communicate directly with Kiriyenko (Sergei Kiriyenko, general director of Rosatom, which includes Atomflot. - "Vlast" ) . I went to these meetings twice. At one of them, the captain from the Rossiya said: “I am the captain of a nuclear icebreaker, a nuclear floating station, and I get some 80 thousand rubles, and do you think this is fair?” And Kiriyenko replies: “I give you a guarantee that within three to four years you will receive at least $10 thousand.” This program is being carried out, salaries are being increased, but now there is a very large difference between positions. Those who came to work with higher education icebreaker, no one earns less than 50 thousand. The average salary at Atomflot is 70 thousand. But engine drivers receive about 40 thousand, on a voyage - about 50 thousand."

Currently, there is not a single decent port from Arkhangelsk to Chukotka

Icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route were also floating hospitals, mobile emergency response centers, and rescue ships. “Icebreakers are rescue ships. They always have an emergency diving base and helicopters. Our divers had to seal the holes. Or the ship gets stuck somewhere and gets carried aground, there were many such cases on both the Ermak and the Makarov.” We had to rescue,” says Gennady Antokhin, senior captain-mentor of the Far Eastern Shipping Company (FESCO), who has worked on diesel icebreakers for more than 30 years. He remembers how he was offered a job on an icebreaker. “I thought: wow, how beautiful! But I decided to consult with my wife. I consult with my wife, she told me: “What an icebreaker, people here carry mohair in bales from Japan, go abroad, and you will be in the ice all your life.” I told her listened and did the opposite,” says the captain. According to Antokhin, icebreakers did not come to the aid of people from nearby northern villages very often, but such cases did happen: “People were taken from these villages in Chukotka. Once we had to deliver a wounded man from Vankarem to Shmidt; in the Sea of Okhotsk it happened from lighthouses deliver people to Magadan twice."

Since 1978, "Lenin", together with the icebreakers "Arktika" and "Sibir" built by that time, mastered year-round navigation. Then it was hoped that the Arctic fleet would consist of 12 icebreakers. Now there are only six of them left.

With the increase in the volume of transported cargo, the question arises of the availability of specialists capable of operating ships in ice. But there is no one to work on those icebreakers that remain in service. On average, Russian maritime schools do not provide 20-25% of the specialists required on ships. According to the senior mate of the operating nuclear icebreaker "Yamal" Valery Tomov, now all graduates are eager to work under foreign flags and receive salaries in dollars or euros: "Take any specialty, now there is a shortage of personnel, especially experienced sailors." Cadets of Makarov University said at Transport Week in Moscow that graduates are ready to work not abroad, but at home with all social guarantees, if their salary is in the range of $3-4 thousand.

Navigation along the Northern Sea Route has its own specifics and special tactics for ice navigation. “Here you don’t just walk on water, but control a ship in ice. Especially if you are sailing with a caravan or in tow, the handles practically don’t stand still, you constantly equalize the speed and watch the distance. You watch the ice. You need to know when to add. earlier or later - at a certain moment. Because later the icebreaker may lose inertia, get stuck. The steamer behind, it is harder for it to stop, may catch up, which is undesirable. When I worked with captain Alexander Spirin, he told me: “Don’t run away, don’t run away, "Don't be afraid." But how can you not be afraid when there are 70 thousand tons of gasoline behind you! Ships follow the icebreaker, where the sailors also take a long time to get used to moving close to the icebreaker. They are scared, they are not used to such maneuvers and slow down. The ship gets stuck." , says Tomov.

In Soviet times, the route was in great demand, because most goods to the Far East were imported from the middle zone or imported in transit from Murmansk to all the villages located along the Northern Sea Route. When the Iron Curtain collapsed, it became more profitable to buy equipment and tractors in China and Japan.

Difficult times have come for the Northern Sea Route. On many islands along the Northern Sea Route there were large airfields, headquarters and military facilities, the needs of which were served by the icebreaker fleet. According to Kondratyev, in 2009, runways and residential buildings were still visible, but their roofs had already collapsed. Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov promised that by the end of 2015, ten airfields will be reconstructed in the Arctic zone. According to Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, it is too early to talk about how the increase in military activity will affect transit cargo flow. “This is a problem that you need to start thinking about later. Now the ruble will collapse, the banking system will collapse, and there will be neither ten airfields nor planes, and we will all eat potatoes, like in the early nineties, from our own beds. I think that the ambitious the programs will have to be cut, and God forbid if there are five airfields,” he believes.

The most serious problem in the Russian Arctic is infrastructure. Sergei Bondarev says that at present there is not a single decent port from Arkhangelsk to Chukotka: “Everything that was there has long been broken, and it is not yet known whether it will be restored. So far, only the port of Sabetta. This is a big problem for both foreigners and their own ships, there are no normal checkpoints, there are no normal bases, there is no opportunity, working on a short shoulder, to go to the same Tiksi to take fuel."

Now the main load of the icebreaker fleet is the transportation of Russian oil and gas along the Northern Sea Route. Any mention of easing ice conditions in the Arctic triggers a series of reports and forecasts that extol the virtues of the Northern Sea Route and call it an alternative to commercial shipping through the Suez Canal. According to supporters of using the NSR for transporting goods between Northern Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, shortening the distance promises a reduction in transportation costs. But shipowners are frightened by the high tariffs for ship navigation, which are associated with the need for icebreaker support along the Northern Sea Route.

“But there are no calculations of the upcoming costs associated with providing the Northern Sea Route with modern infrastructure, regulatory documents, training personnel for navigation in ice, and increasing requirements for the structural strength of the ships themselves,” they note in their article in the Marine Fleet magazine. Nikolay Grigoriev and Sergey Latukhov, professors at the State University of Maritime and River Fleet named after Admiral Makarov.

In the summer of 2012, the law on the Northern Sea Route was adopted, and in February 2013, the Strategy for the Development of the Arctic Zone was adopted. However, development issues are divided between the Ministry of Natural Resources, which oversees shelf development, and the Northern Sea Route administration, controlled by the Ministry of Transport. According to experts, there are many problems in the development of the Russian Arctic due to the lack of a special “Arctic” department overseeing this activity, funding for programs and the absence of a law on the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.

After changes were made to the principles of tariff setting for shipping along the Northern Sea Route, Atomflot began to bear losses. According to Deputy General Director of Atomflot Andrei Smirnov, “previously, shipowners paid the so-called icebreaker or ton dues if they were carrying cargo.” “Since last year, the Federal Tariff Service has changed the rules of the game, now payment is for services actually rendered, that is, for specific wiring,” adds Andrei Smirnov. “Accordingly, many shipowners, especially those who have good ice-class vessels, do not enter into contracts, They go where they want." He explains that previously, for transit transportation, they used the fact that tariffs could be reduced if there was a justification for this. "We calculated how much it costs to navigate the Suez Canal. Ours turned out to be 5-10% more expensive, and the time savings were about 12-13 days. But, of course, there are risks, the problem of insurance is urgent. Insurers demand decent amounts from companies, especially if the ship has a small ice class,” says Smirnov.

In addition, maritime contracts for the carriage of goods imply that the ship must arrive at its destination at a clearly designated time. But it is very difficult for the icebreaker fleet to ensure such accuracy, since weather conditions in this region are unpredictable. For example, in 1983, in the area of the port of Pevek, the Northern Sea Route was suddenly clogged with the Aion ice massif. Once every 30-40 years it breaks away and goes to the shores. The entire icebreaker fleet was sent there. The villages in that area were threatened with evacuation because fuel and food could not be delivered.

I am the captain of a nuclear icebreaker, a nuclear floating station, and I earn some 80 thousand rubles.

According to Kim Jeong-woo, CEO of Korean tire company Hankuk Tire Russia, the key factors for businesses when deciding on a shipping route are speed and cost. "Our goal is to make tire transportation as fast and cheap as possible in order to be able to quickly respond to market needs. However, Hankook does not currently consider the Northern Sea Route as an alternative for transportation because it is not commercialized and logistics companies do not offer economically attractive options in this geographic direction,” he explains.

Japan considers the development of the Northern Sea Route one of its strategic interests and intends to consider the possibilities of its use, said the Minister of the Japanese Embassy in Russia, Rokuichiro Mitii, in August 2014 in Murmansk. Chairman of the Russian-Japanese Business Council, President of Business Russia Alexey Repik says that the Northern Sea Route today is obviously one of the most discussed transport corridors in Eurasia. “The first and biggest challenge of the Northern Sea Route is seasonality. The second big difficulty is that this route is not suitable for ships with a large carrying capacity, as well as for ships or tankers with a large container capacity,” continues Alexey Repik. “This reduces "The financial efficiency of the Northern Sea Route per ton compared to the traditional sea route from Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal."

The development of Arctic shipping in the Northern Sea Route will be associated with the development of our fields mainly on land, as well as on the Yenisei and Ob. Mikhail Grigoriev, a member of the scientific council under the Security Council, is confident that if cargo traffic grows, the infrastructure will develop: “The maximum ship that has sailed along the Northern Sea Route is, God forbid, a fifteen-thousand-ton vessel. But for the transportation of oil, condensate and LNG, a fifteen-thousand-ton vessel is a minuscule amount. There is a minimum volume - 70 thousand. The first task in the next ten years that the Northern Sea Route will solve is our own problems associated with the development of fields and the export of products to the Asia-Pacific markets. This will lead to the expansion of the NSR service, which will ultimately reduce the cost of passage for other participants There is no doubt that the NSR will be used for transit, but for this we must keep in mind that it will be a seasonal alternative to the Suez Canal. It will be exclusively focused on raw materials: this is what we extract ourselves and transport to eastward. Our same iron ore and Norwegian ore, if China continues to grow, can be transported along the NSR. And all the plans for containers and so on are beyond the horizon of 2025.”

You are invited to the ice – Power – Kommersant