by Tanada » Wed 01 Oct 2008, 22:47:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'W')e don't believe in global warming, you understand, but we are nevertheless arguing with Canada over who controls the Northwest passage when...er...if global warming ever opens it up:
As ice melts, debate over Northwest Passage heats$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]7,900 miles vs. 12,600 miles
A reliably ice-free Northwest Passage could be a far shorter alternative to the Panama Canal. A 12,600-nautical-mile trip from Europe to Asia via the Panama Canal would be 7,900 nautical miles using the Northwest Passage. That would save hundreds of thousands of dollars for shipping companies.
"People are looking for new ways to get across the North American continent," says Garrett Brass, executive director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission in Arlington, Va. "It would be a very attractive way to move Alaskan oil to the East Coast."
The Navy thinks the Northwest passage could be a viable shipping route within ten years, at least for part of the year.
From several published articles I accidently closed so I don't have the links handy a German company named Beluga Shipping is planning to use the NorthEast Passage along the Siberian coast in 2009 to transfer cargo between Bremen Germany and Yokohama Japan.
Doing so saves 4,700 nautical miles of travel at 18 knots that is 11 days cut off the transit time. I don't know how many ships make the run from German to Japan each year, but even if they only manage to make one leg of the round trip through the passage saving the time for each ship through saves fuel, labor cost, and on top of everything else adds 11 days of potential travel to other places at other times of the year by the same ship. 12,600 miles at 18 knots is 29 days of travel. For every three ships which take the northern rout successfully it is the same profit gain as if you had sent four ships via panama, without the cost of a fourth ship, fourth crew, and fourth fueling for the trip. Cutting the trip from 29 days to 18 is going to be a very significant change, even if it is only viable for 30 days a year. You can roughly plan when the passage will open and keep a close eye on it as the date approaches, any ships leaving from the day before it opens through the next three weeks can be rerouted north as soon as it opens and save massive amounts of time and fuel. Another thing is, if you are a global shipping company you can coordinate ships going both ways, not just one way.
So presuming the passage is open only 28 days, none of your ships can make a round trip through the passage, but ships going both ways can make one leg of their journey using the northern route. According to
LINK $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd this does not include marine fuel costs, which rose from an average $295 per tonne at the beginning of 2007 to more than $500 per tonne in November. Fuel today accounts for 50-60 per cent of total transpacific sailing costs.
Now imagine cutting transit time by 38% and fuel usage by the same amount. 295/500=59% so your fuel increase cost of 41% would be nearly cancelled out for this one leg of your yearly passages. Presuming you can keep your ship at sea 290 days of the year with the rest of the time used in port loading, unloading and undergoing maintenance that is 5 round trips between Asia and Europe via Panama. Now divert north for one leg of one of those trips in late summer/early autumn. If you have a fixed price contract you can pocket the difference in fuel costs for the shorter trip, but you better make sure you don't have an early delivery penalty hidden in there somewhere which cancels it out
I wonder how this will effect the JIT shipping rules, after all if you have this one window of opportunity per year but you are stifled from using it because everything is predicated on the transit time of the longer route it won't do you a lot of good.
I picture it this way, you company ships identical cargo's every week from Europe to Asia, thus each week one of your ships arrives at the other end of its journey. August 1st you send a ship via Panama, August 8th another, August 15th another, August 22 another. When your August 29th ship leaves port however the Northern route is open and taken, and the September 5th ship, September 12th ship and September 17th ships also take the northern route. The September 24th ship resumes taking the Panama route as the passage will be closed before it can get through.
Now look at the destination ports arrivals, they get the first ship of these 8 on the 30th of August, the second ship arrives September 6th. The third ship arrives on September 13th. Up to this point everything is as the receiver expected it to be. Then the fifth ship to leave arrives at its destination on the 16th, about the same time the 3rd ship is clearing the port. The fourth ship then arrives on the 20th, followed by the sixth ship on the 23rd. The seventh and eighth ships arrive on the 30th of September and 7th of October. The ninth ship however took the Panama route and will not arrive until October 23rd, leaving a gap of two nearly weeks between ships. If these companies use a strict JIT system this would create chaos, first extra ships are arriving to be unloaded and the cargo stored somewhere until needed, then a gap of 13 days instead of 7 between ships eight and nine. Notice however that if you add up all the dates, four ships arrived earlier than expected and only one later.
If you didn't want to mess up the delivery schedule too much and your primary concern was fuel expense you could have the four ships on the northern route slow down as soon as they were through the critical passage, a slower ship burns much less fuel. You could even time it so that they arrive on the same dates they would have arrived via the panama route if you so desire to keep the JIT system from having fits. For the first two ships taking the northern route they could actually travel at reduced speed for the whole trip, presuming the route that it will be clear for at least two weeks. The sailors will get paid for the same duration trip, but the fuel costs would go down significantly because the ships would traverse the distance at 11.5 knots instead of 18 knots. That cuts fuel use about in half due to the laws of hydrodynamics. For ships three and four on the northern route I would say cruising speed until through the critical passage, then slow even further to something like 8 knots to stay on schedule and save as much fuel as possible while doing so.
Thoughts anybody?
by Tanada » Thu 02 Oct 2008, 12:36:31
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pablo2079', 'T')he comparison to the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca is flawed in that Canada has land on both sides of the passage. I believe Canada has a valid claim, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
No question of it; long stretches of the passage in the east are only about 40 miles wide; in the west, they're far narrower, with both shores visible. If the straits between the Hawaiian islands aren't international, then the Northwest Passage
certainly isn't.
I think this is the whole reason the Beluga Shipping company is planning to use the North East passage along the Siberian coastline, they don't want to get caught up in an international peeing match between Canada and themselves over free passage through any portion of the Northwest passage between Canadian islands. I think the whole thing will ultimately be resolved in favor of Canada because both logic and international law are on their side. Once the ice cap pulls north of the islands however Canada won't be able to make the same claims, passing in the open sea beyond a shore is an entirely different matter than passing through a strait between two pieces of land. IMO if Canada were smart they would be offering passage liscences to shipping companies right now for 2009, misbehave in 2009 and you loose the right to purchase a passage liscence in later years.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
by Tanada » Thu 02 Oct 2008, 17:35:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'A')ctually Nickle in the past AL crude has been sold to Japan.
Well, if that's gotta go through the Northwest Passage, then someone in the planning department needs to be held back a year.
AL is the state code for Alabama so oil from there to Japan would either have to go north or south, Mexico keeps it from going due west
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
by Plantagenet » Thu 02 Oct 2008, 23:36:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'A')ctually Nickle in the past AL crude has been sold to Japan.
Well, if that's gotta go through the Northwest Passage, then someone in the planning department needs to be held back a year.
AL is the state code for Alabama so oil from there to Japan would either have to go north or south, Mexico keeps it from going due west
They are going to ship peanut oil from AL and GA to Japan through the NW Passage? Wow!
I hope they are using the modern double-hulled peanut oil tankers!
by Tanada » Mon 06 Oct 2008, 21:22:12
Looking at the visible light sea ice satalite views
Northwest Passage &
Northeast Passage for Sunday October 5th it is clear that both passages are still nominally navigable by commercial shipping.
According to
NSIDC 25Aug2008 $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he United States National Ice Center confirms that Amundsen's Northwest Passage is navigable. The AMSR-E data furthermore indicate that the Northern Sea Route (also called the Northeast Passage) is open.
This means that the passages have both been navigable for 41 days as of yesterday. In 2007 only the Northwest passage opened, that occured 21AUG2007. The NSIDC report for 14OCT2007 indicates that no ice free route remained open as of that date. Therefore in 2007 the Northwest passage alone opened and was open about 50 days. In 2008 BOTH passages opened and are still both navigable after 41 days. I will keep an eye on them and see when each closes for the year.
Earlier in the thread I based my calculations on the passage being open for 28 days in 2009, unless something radically changes between now and then it appears I was extreamly pessimistic and at least one passage will be open for six weeks or longer vs the four weeks I used in my calculations. Given that figure it now appears that ships transiting very early in the ice free period would have time to transit, unload/reload and return through the passage during the ice free period.
Also if a major shipping company were to so choose a VLCC or ULCC could load in Turkey via pipeline, transit the Med Sea, north Atlantic and Arctic and arrive in Japan or China in about the same time it would take to travle from Kuwait through the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and Western Pacific, without the threat of passing through the Strait of Hormuuz or the Straits of Mallacca, both of which are threatened in time of local conflicts. I suppose the same time of freighter could even load in Norway cutting considerable distance off the journey and take the northern route to Asia.
For the last two years the Northwest Passage has been open for at least the last week of August, all of September and the first week of October.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
by Tanada » Thu 09 Oct 2008, 18:56:36
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'L')ooking at the visible light sea ice satalite views
Northwest Passage &
Northeast Passage for Sunday October 5th it is clear that both passages are still nominally navigable by commercial shipping.
According to
NSIDC 25Aug2008 $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he United States National Ice Center confirms that Amundsen's Northwest Passage is navigable. The AMSR-E data furthermore indicate that the Northern Sea Route (also called the Northeast Passage) is open.
This means that the passages have both been navigable for 41 days as of yesterday. In 2007 only the Northwest passage opened, that occured 21AUG2007. The NSIDC report for 14OCT2007 indicates that no ice free route remained open as of that date. Therefore in 2007 the Northwest passage alone opened and was open about 50 days. In 2008 BOTH passages opened and are still both navigable after 41 days. I will keep an eye on them and see when each closes for the year.
For the last two years the Northwest Passage has been open for at least the last week of August, all of September and the first week of October.
Based on visible light imagry it appears that the Northeast passage closed yesterday, October 8th. From August 25th to October 7th is 43 days unless I miscounted somewhere, which is six full weeks and a day. The southern branch of thre Northwest passage remains open as of that date (yesterday).
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
