Illustration of a Maersk Arc4 ice-class container ship sailing through ice on the Northern Sea Route.
Maersk Line have launched the first container ship on an Arctic route over the top of Russia as the world’s biggest carrier of seaborne freight experiments with an alternative to the Suez Canal. The Venta Maersk, a 3,600-container new ice-class ship belonging to the Danish group, will leave Vladivostok in the next few days bound for St Petersburg, which it will reach by the end of September. The Northern Sea Route, which stretches from the Bering Strait between Russia and the US along the far north of Russia to its exit close to Norway, has been touted as a potential long-term rival to the Suez Canal for Asia-Europe trade as ice in the Arctic continues to melt.
This summer temperatures in the Arctic Circle have been unusually high, soaring above 30C in some parts. The Northern Sea Route can cut the journey time between Asia and Europe by one to two weeks depending on the destination but is more costly, still requires nuclear icebreakers to accompany vessels and can only take smaller vessels than the Suez Canal.
Confirming a story by High North News, Maersk said: “The trial passage will enable us to explore the operational feasibility of container shipping through the Northern Sea Route and to collect data.”
The Venta Maersk will be the first container ship to sail the route, but other types of vessels have already used it, including Maersk’s Chinese rival COSCO, according to the Arctic Institute.
Russian natural gas producer Novatek delivered the first ever liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo to China via the Northern Sea Route in July.
In January, China revealed ambitions to create a “Polar Silk Road” by developing shipping lanes opened up by global warming and encouraging enterprises to build infrastructure in the Arctic.