Hopeful expectations that a new transportation route through the so-called Northern Sea Passage could speed the shipment of seafood from Russia’s Far East to its major population centers in Western Russia have thus far not been met.
The North Sea Passage, also known as the Northeast Passage, is a 14,000-kilometer route running from the port of Vladivostok to Saint Petersburg that has become more feasible as global warming has warmed up the oceans and the world’s polar extremes.
Atomflot, a Russian shipping company that is part of the energy giant Rosatom, will organize only one trip of its nuclear-powered ship Sevmorput to deliver seafood in 2020.
Despite the evident benefits of the sea route versus the land one regarding travel time and cost, the barriers are still overwhelming, according to the company.
The route has been in use since 2011, and Atomflot ran its first test of the shipping route in 2017. Additional runs took place in 2018 and 2019, though the second trip last year was canceled due to economic reasons.
In 2020, the Kamchatka region’s provisional governor, Vladimir Solodov, raised the issue of commercial use of the Northern Sea Passage during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fishing companies in Kamchatka have long complained of lack of transportation capacity during their annual summer salmon season, and recent record hauls have exacerbated that situation, Solodov said.
Regular transportation via the Northern Sea Route could help the situation, Solodov told Putin, subsequently reducing prices paid by Russian consumers for seafood and maintaining their quality during the transport process. Subsequently, Rosatom CEO Andrey Likhachev also chimed in, saying the Sevmorput can make three to four trips during the season, carrying up to 50,000 metric tons (MT) of cargo.
In response, Putin ordered the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries to work with local fishing companies businesses, Rosatom, and local authorities in the Far East to pursue the initiative.
But in late June, the agency announced the Sevmorput will only make one trip this year, beginning on 31 August in the Kamchatka region, and scheduled to arrive in St. Petersburg on 16 September. Additionally, the vessel will carry just 30,000 MT of product – significantly lower than the ship’s capacity. Local fishing companies in the Far East have worked to organize additional cargo trips via the Northern Sea Route, but their number and volumes are still unclear.
Olga Kuznetsova, the deputy governor of the Murmansk region – which is trying to become a hub for fish delivered via the new route – said in an interview with the TASS media agency that cargo travel through the Arctic Ocean will be profitable only if shipping companies can find cargo to carry in their return route to the Far East. At the moment, a special regional commission is working on finding solutions to that issue, Kuznetsova said.
Photo courtesy of Andrei Stepanov/Shutterstock
