Northeast Passage

The two vessels successfully navigated the narrow strip of water off Russia's northern coast last week.

The vessels had delivered their cargo of heavy industrial equipment, loaded in South Korea, to Novy Port in western Siberia, and were now continuing their voyage to Nigeria, where they were due to deliver a shipment of steel pipes picked up in the Russian port of Arkhangelsk, according to the Beluga shipping company, which owns the vessels.

The voyage only became possible because of climate change.

Melting Arctic sea ice has opened the way for ships to navigate the Arctic waters and avoid the icebergs, floes and pack ice that have confounded previous attempts to use the route for trade.

The Arctic's sea ice thawed to its third-lowest level on record this summer. On Sept. 12, it covered around 5.1 million square kilometers (2 million square miles) - around a million square kilometers more than in 2007, which had the lowest coverage since records began some 30 years ago.

The Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight are the first Western commercial ships to transit the Northeast Passage successfully, according to the Bremen-based shipping company.

Until now, only parts of the route have been navigable at any given time, and they were only used by Russian shipping companies. The Fraternity and Foresight were accompanied by Russian icebreakers, but never needed to call upon them for assistance.

Despite the fact that the trip took a long time to clear with Russian authorities, who demanded large fees in return for their approval, the Beluga shipping company said it was satisfied with the trip.

"We have saved not only voyage time - around 10 days, worth around $200,000 - but also, we've been able to save fossil fuels in the amount of around 200 tons per ship, and at a cost of around $90,000," said company spokesperson Verena Beckhusen.

Time is money

But savings in time and cash aren't likely to unleash an armada of merchant shipping on the Arctic.

The route is only practical for European trade with northeast Asia, a fraction of the region's total volume. Furthermore, only certain kinds of cargo will be worth sending via the Northeast Passage, said Max Johns, spokesperson for the German Ship Owners Association.

"Container ships will always take the southern route because there are many more ports," he said. "Container ships work a little bit like buses in a city. They have to go from port to port and collect and deliver containers in every possible port otherwise it is not worthwhile running them."

The Northeast Passage makes most sense for specialist deliveries of heavy-lift cargo, or bulk quantities of commodities like coal, iron ore and oil, Johns added.

Added complications, new attractions

The passage is also only open for a six- to eight-week window each summer. Then there is the challenge of dealing with an expensive, and Byzantine, Russian bureaucracy: The Beluga shipping company only won final approval for its voyage in August following an application process that took nearly a year.

One underplayed aspect of Beluga's successful voyage is that it makes resource extraction in the region more attractive.

"The extraction is the real attraction now when the ice melts, and especially Russia has a very keen eye on that," Johns said. "For us, as service providers, it may be interesting to transport that cargo to where it is being needed."

Environmental hazard

Vast quantities of energy resources are believed to be located in the Arctic. With some countries already gearing up to exploit them, this is precisely the kind of cargo that concerns environmentalists most.

"If there were an oil spill, either from shipping or from the extraction work which will also increase when the ice is going ... then combating it would be very difficult," said Ulrich Claussen, who leads the German Federal Environment's Agency's efforts to protect marine life.

The cold and stormy weather conditions would complicate clean-up efforts from a technical point of view and would also hinder the region's natural capacity to absorb damage, Claussen added.

"Normally bacteria can degrade the oil, but the colder it is the less active bacteria normally are," he said. "There might be a very slow reaction from the environment. In Alaska, where the spill from the Exxon Valdez was, we can still see some signs of non-recovery now."

The Beluga shipping company, however, is already planning another voyage through the Northeastern Passage for next year. Next year's trip, again on behalf of General Electric, will be an even bigger exercise, requiring ships around double the size of the Fraternity and Foresight.

Nathan Witkop

Editor: Sean Sinico