[sparky]

.
Yep , that's about the size of it

[vtsnowedin]

Well we will see if cargo ships exiting Rotterdam bound for China or Japan choose to turn right instead of left to save time and fuel. If some do and make money at it then it might become a trend but there would need to be several profitable voyages using the Northern route to convince those with experienced and reliable routes through the Suez canal to make the change. Of course China developing a fossil fuel delivery route totally outside of US jurisdiction is in their military best interest but there cost is much less of a factor.

[Newfie]

About shipping in general, not arctic.

With the slow economy many ships are layed up. And many are headed to the breakers. The latest is a 10 year old Panamax vessel. Still lots of life left but no market.

Maybe this should be in the stock market crash thread.

https://gcaptain.com/10-year-old-panama ... for-scrap/

[sparky]

.
ship cargo got their index the "Baltic dry index" it's used to gage the state of the world trading

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/baltic

[JuanP]

"Northern Sea Route shipping rises as sea ice falls"
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

"Commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route of the Russian north coast is increasing. This includes complete transits from Europe to East Asia, local shipping within the Arctic Ocean, and deliveries of liquefied natural gas from gas fields in the Yamal Peninsula to ports in both Europe and East Asia. The years 2019 and 2020 saw significantly increased shipping activity compared with 2018. 2020 had slightly more shipping than 2019 when comparing August shipping from both years. The shipping traffic map shows the importance of passages just north of the Taymyr Peninsula and near the New Siberian Islands on either side of the Laptev Sea; these are generally the last areas to clear of ice, and only in the warmest years. However, in 2020, the Northern Sea Route was essentially ice free from mid-July through about October 25. Icebreaker and ice-hardened tankers made several voyages within the route as early as June."

"Russia's latest and most powerful nuclear icebreaker sets off on maiden Arctic voyage"
https://www.rt.com/business/506833-russ ... ge-arctic/
"The icebreaker’s first voyage will take three weeks, according to AtomFlot. After the completion of the voyage, ‘Arktika’ will return to Murmansk to replenish supplies, and will head back to the Northern Sea Route in late December. The nuclear-powered ship will conduct winter-spring navigation in the Arctic."

[Subjectivist]

I am actually surprised it doesn't set a new shipping record at least 2 out of 3 years given how much shorter the route "over the top" is compared to the Suez and Panama routes.

[dissident]

There would be more traffic if it wasn't for Washington's blackmail threats against international shipping companies with sanctions. Washington has been frothing at the mouth about "Russian militarization of the Arctic" when Russia has been deploying hardware and revitalizing old bases on its own freaking soil. Washington had big plans for sea based ABM deployment near Russia's Arctic waters as part of its dream of boost phase ICBM interception. That plan hasn't been working out so the big baby is screaming. Also Washington, can't let the shipping chokehold it has in Panama and Suez be undermined by an alternative route. If you think this is not true, then do some research on the Suez crisis.

So we have had all sorts MSM propaganda assault on Russia and "environmentalist" action in the form of concern for the "fragile ecosystem" in the Arctic as if that ever mattered before. There is pressure at the UN to "protect" the Arctic from ebil Rosshian dominated shipping. Russia has anticipated some of this BS and is building new freighters and LNG carriers to operate on natural gas. Another effort is to offer shipping services since not all countries can flip over to squeaky clean ship propulsion:

https://www.arctictoday.com/rosatom-loo ... g-service/

In case it is not clear, the so-called environmental action is pure political rubbish since cutting down on ship travel time directly reduces emissions of CO2 and sulphate aerosol. The USA is not pushing its proxies to "clean up" shipping through the Suez and Panama.

[JuanP]

The IMO will ban heavy fuel oil use in the Arctic
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene ... rctic.html

"The International Maritime Organization (IMO) approved on Friday a ban on the use of heavy fuel oil for ships in the Arctic, but environmental organizations slammed the new regulation as “riddled with loopholes” that would continue to exonerate some polluters well into the end of 2020s. The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the UN’s organization IMO moved to ban the use of heavy fuel oil (HFO) and its carriage for use by ships in Arctic waters after July 1, 2024.
The controversy in the new regulation arises from several provisions. One exempts ships with oil fuel tanks inside their double hull, while another gives countries in Arctic waters the right to issue waivers from the HFO ban for vessels flying their respective flags in the Arctic until July 1, 2029."

One can't help but wonder how much geopolitical issues are behind these decisions, and not just environmental ones. I am not disputing the possible environmental benefits, but a large number of environmental and human rights organizations have been corrupted and politicized in the last decades, and everything they say and do these days needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

[dissident]

It is pure political theater. They want to ban "dirty" fuel on a short-cut route, but do precisely f*ck all on the existing, longer routes. Sulfate pollution in the Arctic is not special. Clearly CO2 emissions are not confined there either. This geopolitical poser "environmentalism" is not credible since it does not act to stop the pollution in all transport shipping.

Also, for all the phony bleeding hearts, any wreaks leaking oil or bilge oil dumping would affect Russia's coat foremost. Canada would simply not be affected and only the Bering Strait and western Alaska would have some risk. But Alaska is already exposed to Exxon Valdez type risk.

[JuanP]

"Russia working on massive oil project to boost country's position in Arctic"
https://www.rt.com/business/507986-russ ... ct-arctic/

"Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin, who has met with President Vladimir Putin this week, has pledged that Vostok Oil will deliver up to 30 million tons of oil via the Northern Sea Route by 2024.

In total, the project will ensure the production, transportation and transshipment of up to 50 million tons of oil per year at the initial stage, and up to 100 million tons when the second stage is completed, Sechin said."

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JuanP', '[')b]"Russia working on massive oil project to boost country's position in Arctic"
https://www.rt.com/business/507986-russ ... ct-arctic/

"Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin, who has met with President Vladimir Putin this week, has pledged that Vostok Oil will deliver up to 30 million tons of oil via the Northern Sea Route by 2024.

In total, the project will ensure the production, transportation and transshipment of up to 50 million tons of oil per year at the initial stage, and up to 100 million tons when the second stage is completed, Sechin said."

[JuanP]

"Russian oil giant announces start of vast Arctic project"
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-russian-o ... rctic.html

Another source on the news above.

[JuanP]

The Arctic Ocean is a Russian lake"
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/ ... sian-lake/

"Most of the Arctic is frozen most of the time and icebreaker ships are necessary. According to this list of operational icebreakers, Canada has six, the USA four, Denmark three, Norway two. Russia has more than seventy. Russia’s fleet is modern, the others are old. Russia has the only nuclear-powered icebreakers – eight in service according to Wikipedia. The Arktika is the world’s largest and most powerful icebreaker capable of operating through three metres of ice; there are three more in the works. But an even larger class is coming: four metre ice; construction began in July. Russia’s icebreaker capacity is so enormous that one of them spends its time running tourist cruises to the North Pole. None of the other Arctic countries has anything like this. The USA is planning to build more to replace its elderly fleet; Canada is “exploring options“.

The principal reason for Russia’s construction of such powerful icebreakers as the Project 10510 (aka Leader or Лидер class) is to turn the “Northern Sea Route” into a year-round useable shipping route. The route runs from Murmansk (ice-free year-round and therefore accessible to world shipping) along the top of Russia, through the Bering Straits into the Pacific Ocean – a much shorter route than anything else. At present, its potential is offset by the facts that it has very thick ice at the eastern end and that current icebreakers move slowly at their icebreaking limits. The intention is that the Leader class icebreakers will be able to move through the heavy ice at normal ship speeds (about 12 knots). All this is explained in here by John Helmer."

More info and several related links at the article linked above.

[REAL Green]

“An oil spill in Russia’s Arctic exposes risks for Moscow’s Far North plans”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... rc404=true

“Thawing permafrost in the rapidly warming region leaves Moscow’s ambitious Arctic expansion proposals literally on shaky ground…The smell of diesel was so overpowering that it made Vasily Ryabinin dizzy. That meant he was getting close. As an inspector from Russia’s environmental agency, Ryabinin went on his own to the Daldykan River in the Siberian city of Norilsk to see firsthand the aftermath of a major fuel leak at a metals plant. He was also getting a glimpse of something else: possible warning signs for Russia’s plans to aggressively expand its industrial and military footholds across the country’s resource-rich Arctic — one of the world’s fastest-warming regions. This surge in climate change in interior Russia — more than three times the global average — is throwing new risks in the way of President Vladimir Putin’s Far North agenda, among his top domestic initiatives. A key danger is piling more infrastructure atop rapidly thawing permafrost, land that remains frozen year after year.”

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ore than 32 million tons of goods has been shipped on the Russian Arctic shipping route in 2020.

As Russia’s vast Arctic waters freeze and ships flee the region, nuclear power company Rosatom makes public its latest Arctic shipping data.

Despite the COVID-19 and global economic downturn, shipping in the region continues to grow. According to Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear power company, the 32 million tons landmark was crossed on Dec. 22.

However, only a minor share of the volumes have been shipped along the eastern part of the route. The overwhelming part has been shipped on the western part, and first of all to the LNG terminal of Sabetta, oil terminal of Kamenny, as well as the Utrenneye construction project in Gydan Peninsula.

Symptomatically, as the new data was presented on Dec. 22, there was not a single ship sailing in the waters between the mouth of great river Yenisey and the Bering Strait, a several thousand kilometer distance.

According to Leonid Irlitsa, Deputy Head of Rosatom’s Northern Sea Route Directorate, the original target for the year was 29 million tons. A key event this year has been the opening of a new system for automatic management of maritime operations, Irlitsa explains.

The system will allow for a significant growth in transit shipments on the route in 2021, Rosatom argues.

Shipping on the Northern Sea Route has grown extensively over several years. In 2017, a total of 10,7 million tons were transported on the route. In 2018, the volume increased to 20,18 million tons and in 2019 to 31,5 million.

There is still a long way to go before President Putin’s target for Arctic shipping is reached. In his so-called May Decrees from 2018, Putin requests a total of 80 million tons on the route in 2024.

[dissident]

Fear mongering BS from 3rd parties with no stake in the Arctic Ocean. And "HFO" is not the only fuel option, so yet more BS.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/arti ... a-shipyard

Note the LNG fuel tanks. The new generation of ships used in the Arctic will use LNG for fuel and not "HFO". The above is an example of a new ship for use outside the Arctic Ocean. It is actually one of the world's first LNG fueled supertankers. So these enviro-phonies with politically motivated platforms should sod off.

Since oil will not be a primary product shipped through the north sea route, but goods from China and South East Asia, the only oil spills that these professional stooges can possibly be whinging about is fuel oil or "HFO". But they are also a propaganda front against Russian Arctic development projects inside Russian territory. For example, the Vostok oil development project that will create 130,000 jobs which the UK Times newspaper was bitching about invoking all sorts of irrelevant BS like nuclear weapons.

If these clowns really care about oil spills, then they should ban all oil tanker traffic. Invoking the "argument" that the Arctic is special is BS. They don't own the Russian Arctic coast where basically all of any NSR oil spills will end up. Don't worry your sanctimonious hypocrite heads about Russia's problems.

[JuanP]

One can only imagine how terribly concerned the USA, UK, etc. must be about Russia's environment and the wellbeing of the Russian people. We all know that they are always helping Russia in every way they possibly can and doing everything in their power to assist Russians in their development.

[REAL Green]

“Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn”
https://www.fasterthanexpected.com/2020 ... ists-warn/

“A big concern of Englander’s for our future is the non-linear behavior of sea-level rise. In recent years the pace of sea-level rise has been accelerating. In the 1990s the oceans rose at about 2 millimeters per year. From 2000 to 2015 the average was 3.2 millimeters per year. But over the past few years the pace has quickened to 4.8 millimeters per year. At the current pace, we can expect at least 15 more inches of sea-level rise by the year 2100. But, as has been the case for the past few decades, the pace of sea-level rise is expected to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. So, 15 inches is not only a lower bound, it is also extremely unlikely. Adding confidence to the paper’s warning that IPCC projections for a strong warming scenario may be too low, is the evidence that sea-level rise has been running on the high end of IPCC projections for decades. Historically speaking, simple math reveals that for every degree Fahrenheit the Earth warms, sea-level eventually rises by an astonishing 24 feet. Considering that Earth has already warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, we know that substantial sea-level rise is already baked in, regardless of whether we stop global warming. Scientists just don’t know exactly how long it will take to see the rise or how fast it will occur. But using proxy records, glaciologists can see that as we emerged from the last Ice Age, sea level rose at remarkable rates — as fast as 15 feet per century at times.”

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('REAL Green', '�')��Sea-level rise from climate change could exceed the high-end projections, scientists warn”
https://www.fasterthanexpected.com/2020 ... ists-warn/

“A big concern of Englander’s for our future is the non-linear behavior of sea-level rise. In recent years the pace of sea-level rise has been accelerating. In the 1990s the oceans rose at about 2 millimeters per year. From 2000 to 2015 the average was 3.2 millimeters per year. But over the past few years the pace has quickened to 4.8 millimeters per year. At the current pace, we can expect at least 15 more inches of sea-level rise by the year 2100. But, as has been the case for the past few decades, the pace of sea-level rise is expected to continue to increase for the foreseeable future. So, 15 inches is not only a lower bound, it is also extremely unlikely. Adding confidence to the paper’s warning that IPCC projections for a strong warming scenario may be too low, is the evidence that sea-level rise has been running on the high end of IPCC projections for decades. Historically speaking, simple math reveals that for every degree Fahrenheit the Earth warms, sea-level eventually rises by an astonishing 24 feet. Considering that Earth has already warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s, we know that substantial sea-level rise is already baked in, regardless of whether we stop global warming. Scientists just don’t know exactly how long it will take to see the rise or how fast it will occur. But using proxy records, glaciologists can see that as we emerged from the last Ice Age, sea level rose at remarkable rates — as fast as 15 feet per century at times.”

[JuanP]

"Russia plans earliest ever shipping of Arctic LNG to Asia""
https://www.rt.com/business/512851-russ ... ment-asia/

"Russian gas producer Novatek plans to send cargo from its Yamal LNG facility to Asian markets via the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in early May with the help of an ice-breaker, sources told Bloomberg.

The cargo would become the earliest-ever shipment of liquefied natural gas to Asia, beating last year’s record by almost two weeks and paving the way for a record navigation season this year."

"Novatek sent an eastbound LNG cargo via the NSR with ice-breaker support in late May in 2020, which was the earliest start to the navigation season in the area to date. Shipments continued to Asia through January, making it a record long navigation season in the eastern Arctic.

Earlier this month, Novatek sent two LNG tankers (‘Christophe de Margerie’ and ‘Nikolay Yevgenov’) to China through the NSR. Industry officials said that the vessels don’t need ice-breaker support as the current conditions in the eastern Arctic are mild. Nevertheless, the tankers will use an ice-breaker on their return to Russia across the passage in February.

According to Sovcomflot, which owns the ‘Christophe de Margerie’, a cargo ship has never made a February voyage in the eastern Arctic. The planned February return voyage is part of “the systemic efforts to gradually extend transit navigation in the eastern sector of the Arctic,” said Sekretarev, adding: “In the future, the goal is to set up safe year-round navigation” across the Northern Route.

Russia wants to turn the NSR into a major trade artery between Europe and Asia. Last year, 33 million tons of freight were transported using the Arctic route."

So, the Northern Sea Route is now open to commercial shipping from May to February. I wonder how long it will take before it is open year round.