Russia’s hopes that global warming would create a great new “Northern Sea Route” (NSR) that would rival the southern route from Asia to Europe via Singapore and Suez, have begun to look unrealistic following the invasion of Ukraine in February this year.
For the first time in more than a decade the NSR would not see international transit traffic, with operators avoiding Russia as a result of sanctions.
Based on data from Russia’s NSR Administration the route is not expected to see any international transits in 2022, the first time this has happened for nearly 15 years. In 2021 the NSR saw international transit shipping reach 2m tons. Last year 86 voyages by vessels from more than 20 countries traversed the route.
The route is not only seeing no international transits – where ships travel the whole stretch from Europe to Asia or vice versa, it has also been almost fully abandoned by non-Russian carriers for any parts of the route. The only non-Russian flagged vessels that remain on the route are LNG carriers transporting LNG for Novatek, which among others fly the flags of Hong Kong, Cyprus and the Bahamas.
One possible surprise is that even Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO, which over the past decade has conducted almost 100 voyages along the route and which last year sent 26 ships, this year has not sent a single ship via the NSR.
