Asia Times: Russia dreams of a new East-West sea link



	May 08, 1999	atimes.com

Central Asia / Siberia

Russia dreams of a new East-West sea link
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a potential new trade link between Europe and Northern Asia, but a long journey lies ahead due to harsh weather conditions in the Arctic seas and the economic maelstrom in Russia and in Asia.

The NSR stretches some 5,600km across the Russian maritime Arctic from the Barents Sea in the west to the Bering Strait in east. Proponents point to the route's potential as a regular cargo service linking Canadian, Japanese, and other Pacific ports with the western sector of the Russian maritime Arctic.

Despite the obstacles, Russian officials say the route remains an innovative idea for transcontinental transport.

''In the 21st century Russia could become a major player where the market of transit transportation services is concerned, notably thanks to the NSR,'' Sergei Frank, Russia's minister of transportation, told IPS.

The NSR, or ''Sevmorput'' in Russian, poses a unique challenge due to the extremely harsh climate. To traverse it, commercial ships must be able to operate in ice 1.5 metres thick and in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees centigrade.

Furthermore, transit must be made through narrow straits where the ice can be under extreme pressure.

The route was first tried by the Dutch navigator Willem Barents in the 16th century. He made three voyages from the Netherlands in search of a north-east passage to Asia.

Ice-locked for most of the year, the NSR is usually navigable during August and September. The chief ports are Dikson, Dudinka, Igarka, Tiksy and Pevek.

In fact, in recent years the entire length of the NSR has been accessible to shipping from mid-July to October. This was achieved by stationing polar ice-breakers in the straits and other areas of difficult ice conditions.

More than 70 ships specially designed as ice-breakers are able to sail the maritime Arctic. Widely spaced port fueling stations along the NSR mean these ships must have large fuel capacities and the ability to refuel from Russian ice-breakers, so that ice-breaking operations can be sustained.

Due to these endurance limitations, nuclear power has become an attractive alternative. In 1960 the nuclear polar ice-breaker ''Lenin'', the world's first nuclear surface ship, commenced escort duties along the NSR. And in 1977 the nuclear polar ice-breaker ''Arktika'', the world's most powerful ice-breaker at 75,000 shaft horsepower, became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.

Since 1978, Soviet ice-breakers and ice-strengthened carriers have maintained year-round navigation to Dudinka, the port city for the industrial complex at Norilsk. Thus, ships routinely ply the ice-covered waters of the Barents and Kara seas throughout the winter. ''We are doing our best to guarantee logistics of the Northern Sea Route - to maintain ice-breakers, to uphold safety of navigation,'' Frank said.

In 1987, the former Soviet Union came up with the so-called Murmansk Initiatives, which declared a readiness to open the NSR for international shipping. The future of Soviet arctic marine transportation appeared secure then, as resource development in Siberia was seen as a key factor to attract investment in the ships and support infrastructure for the NSR. Russia still supports the Murmansk Initiatives.

The Initiatives, in fact, resulted in the creation of the International Northern Sea Route Program (INSROP), a multilateral research program tasked to ''build up a scientifically based knowledge foundation encompassing all relevant aspects of the Northern Sea Route activity."

According to INSROP's findings, the NSR is likely to provide effective logistical solutions and enhance the East-West axis. It thus suggests that the NSR be approached as an alternative to the Suez Canal route.

The NSR is also connected to the north-flowing rivers of the Soviet Arctic - inland waterways important to the movement of cargo and passengers throughout Siberia's interior. These rivers serve as the major link between the NSR and the principal railroads to the south.

Yet use of the NSR has been declining. ''The NSR is still operational. Russia is funneling up to 1 million tonnes of freight a year through the route, mainly to Norilsk,'' Frank says. However, figures show that a decade ago there were about 600 freighting voyages a year, carrying six million tonnes of cargo.

Frank believes that the NSR can become an international transit route ''as soon as a critical mass can be reached.'' Scandinavian countries and Canada have expressed interest in the route, he says.

The Russian media has claimed that international transit could earn Russia up to $15 billion a year, but Frank is more cautious. Asia-Pacific transit freight could potentially bring in $2 billion a year, he says, conceding that the transit market in the region has shrunk in the wake of the Asian and Russian economic crises.

Thus, the NSR is yet to emerge as an important transport route from the Pacific to the Russian port of Murmansk, close to Norway and Finland. But this may change as the next century unfolds.

(Inter Press Service)