Northern Sea Route beckons LNG shippers Global warming may be a threat to glaciers, is revolutionary, a better word would probably be oceanfront cities and fire‐prone forests. evolutionary. Sections of it have been used for centuries. In the early 1500s, Russia's Dmitry But it's also creating new economic opportunities for Gerasimov suggested using the North‐Eastern countries with natural resources in the far north, Passageway (as it was then known) for marine traffic opportunities that some companies and governments between Russia and China. are pushing to exploit. By the mid‐1600s, Russian traders had reached all Opportunities such as the Northern Sea Route, which parts of the route, demonstrating it was theoretically could mean a shorter, faster way to move cargoes — possible for a single vessel to sail the entire route in including liquefied natural gas — to Asia from Russia one voyage. But no one had ever done it. and Norway, and to haul manufactured goods from Asia to Europe. SWEDE SHOWS THE RUSSIANS The Northern Sea Route runs along Russia's northern coast about 3,600 miles between Murmansk in the That honor fell to a Swede named Adolf Nordenskiold. west and the Bering Strait in the east, taking On June 22, 1878, he left Karlsdrona, Sweden, in a 60‐ advantage of the belt of relatively open water formed horsepower wooden sailer‐steamer called the Vega there each summer as the Arctic ice pack retreats. and headed east at a speed of 6 to 7 knots. By late September, he was less than 140 miles from the "What's really driving the Northern Sea Route is global Bering Strait when ice blocked his path and he was commodity prices and natural resource development, obliged to spend the winter near a Chukchi village particularly in Russia," said Lawson Brigham, professor called Pitlekay. of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The Vega was able get under way again on July 18, 1879, and reached the Bering Strait within two days. It's about making money, taking advantage of a Nordenskiold got back home to Sweden by sailing climate‐change induced opportunity and new down the coast of Asia, through the Suez Canal, across technology to move stranded resources to customers. the Mediterranean, and up the Atlantic Coast. The traditional commercial sea road to Asia from Such was the interest in Arctic exploration and the northern Europe and Russia — the long way around — North‐Eastern Passageway that Nordenskiold was runs across Scandinavia, down Europe's Atlantic coast, made a baron and a commander of the Order of the through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal, North Star, a chivalric order dating back to 1748. It around the southern tip of India, and east and north was a reward for "civic merits, for devotion to duty, through the Pacific Ocean. for science, literary, learned and useful works and for Despite a spate of recent headlines suggesting that new and beneficial institutions". the growing traffic on the shorter Northern Sea Route October 2013 Northern Sea Route beckons LNG shippers planning to travel the full length of the route. (For comparison, more than 17,000 vessels moved through the Panama Canal last year.) LNG RENEWS INTEREST IN ROUTE One major new development on the Northern Sea Route is the interest in using it to move liquefied natural gas to energy‐hungry Asian markets. Late last year, a tanker called the Ob River hauled the first LNG cargo over the route, from Norway to Kyushu Electric Power in Tobata, in southern Japan. The icebreaker‐escorted trip, from the Snohvit LNG terminal in Hammerfest, took 27 days, and that was in November and December, late in the season. The same trip via the Suez Canal takes about 10 days longer. While LNG tanker rates vary from company to company and season to season, short‐term charters earlier this year were averaging $90,000‐plus a day, with long‐term charters around $80,000 a day, according to an August 2013 presentation by global consultants PFC Energy in Anchorage. Short‐term rates spiked last year at $150,000 a day, with long‐term charters running $120,000. Source: en.wikipedia.org At those prices, cutting 10 days off a trip to Tobata Swede Adolf Nordenskiold navigated a wooden sailer- could save $1 million. steamer across the Northern Sea Route in 1878-1879. Painting by Swedish artist Georg Von Rosen. Tanker time wasn't the only savings, according to the agency that runs Russia's nuclear icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route. The Ob River also saved about Regular cargo traffic on the Northern Sea Route dates $80,000 in tariffs. The agency, Rosatomflot, put the back to 1933, when 130,000 tons moved — less than ship's icebreaker fees for the trip at $332,000, versus one‐tenth of a percent of 2012 traffic through the $412,000 that would have been charged for passing Panama Canal. through the Suez Canal. Cargo traffic — mostly for supplying Russian facilities "Of all the voyages on the Northern Sea Route in and settlements along its Arctic coast and the rivers history, that one could be the most significant one in that empty into Arctic waters — peaked at 6.6 million showing what the possibilities are," Brigham said. tons a year at the height of the Cold War in the late 1980s. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the THE MILES ADD UP route opened to international traffic that year. But by 1998 Northern Sea Route shipping had collapsed as Russia's immediate interest in the route centers well, down to 1.5 million tons. By 2012, it had climbed around its Yamal project, the only Arctic LNG project back to 3.8 million tons, still far short of its high. under development. Its sponsor says the plant could start production in 2016, ramping up over several As of early fall of this year, the Russian agency that years to a full capacity of about 16 million metric tons administers the route had approved more than 550 of LNG a year, a volume about equal to China's LNG voyages over at least part of it, though tonnage figures imports in 2012. That ambitious schedule assumes the were not available. Neither was the count of vessels October 2013 2 Office of the Federal Coordinator, Alaska Natural Gas Transportaon Projects weren't available, but it is possible to compare distances. By the Northern Sea Route, it's about 6,700 miles from Yamal to Tobata, the port in Japan where the Ob River unloaded. By contrast, it's more than twice as far — about 15,000 miles — to Tobata via the Suez Canal. Even allowing for the additional cost of ice‐strengthened LNG tankers on the northern route and icebreaker escorts on some parts it for some of the year, cutting travel time by half or more during the approximately six months the route is Source: Gazprom navigable is a powerful The Gazprom-chartered LNG tanker Ob River trailing its Russian icebreaker inducement. escorts in its 2012 voyage through the Northern Sea Route – the first ever by an LNG carrier. Exactly how much those Russian icebreaker escorts cost on the developer sticks to its plan for a final investment Northern Sea Route is a little cloudy and more than a decision this year and signs up enough customers. little negotiable. Compared with Snohvit, which has been producing For example, Russia's Northern Sea Route LNG since 2007 on Norway's northwest coast, Yamal is Administration, which manages the route, publishes a about 1,150 miles closer to Japan by the Northern Sea list of maximum icebreaker charges. It shows a cost of Route. (Correspondingly, it's also 1,150 miles farther about $16 per ton of cargo for accompanying bulk by the Suez route.) liquid carriers, depending on how much the ship has Figures on sailing times between Yamal and Japan been strengthened for ice, how much of the voyage Cargo from Kirkenes, Norway, and Murmansk, Russia Via Suez Canal Through Northern Sea Route Days Desnaon Distance Distance Speed Speed saved (naucal Days (naucal Days (knots) (knots) miles) miles) Shanghai, 12,050 14 37 6500 12.91 211 16 China1 Busan, Korea 12,400 14 38 6050 12.9 19.5 18.5 Yokohama, 12,730 14 39 5750 12.9 18.5 20.5 Japan 1Based on an actual voyage by M/V Nordic Barents from Kirkenes to Lianyungang (China), September 2010 Source: Tschudi Kirkenes 3 October 2013 Northern Sea Route beckons LNG shippers Source: Total, Yamal LNG will require icebreaker support, and when the vessel through November, according to the Northern Sea will travel. Sergey Balmasov of the Center for High Route Administration. North Logistics in Kirkenes, Norway, said via email that It may be worth noting that, in the strictest sense, the actual icebreaker fees can be lower for very large Northern Sea Route is never fully closed. If an cargoes. operator has a ship with enough ice strengthening and is willing to pay for enough icebreaker support, the IT MATTERS TO RUSSIA vessel can go anytime — even in the depths of winter. Two main factors are heightening interest in use of the For practical purposes, however, the term "open" as Northern Sea Route. applied to the route generally means the period from The first, as mentioned above, is global warming, early summer to late fall when the ice is thinnest, or which opens up the lanes along the route earlier in the absent altogether in some places. Then, ships with a year and keeps them open later in the season.