Shipping major Sovcomflot will next year start shipping of oil along the Northern Sea Route, the company’s deputy General Director said last week.

Speaking at last week’s Murmansk Economic Forum, company deputy
Yevgenii Ambrosov said oil shipments will be sent along the Northern
Sea Route from year 2010, MBnews.ru reports.

That news comes as interest in Arctic shipping picks pace in several of
the world’s major shipping companies. As BarentsObserver reported, the
German company Beluga already this year sent two of its ships along the
route. That operation was successful and more companies are now
expected to follow.

Among them might be also Gazprom. In his presentation at the Murmansk
Economic Forum, company CEO Aleksey Miller indicated that LNG from the
Shtokman field in the Barents Sea might be shipped not only westwards
towards the USA and EU, but also eastwards along the Northern Shipping
Route. A map shown by the company leader displayed Gazprom ships
operating the route from year 2014.

Oil shipping in the western part of the Russian Arctic has over the
last years shown a steady increase. A 2009 report from Akvaplan-Niva
and the Norwegian Barents Secretariat estimates that 15 million tons of
oil will be shipped across the Barents Sea this year. In few years, oil
shipping in the area might exceed 100 million tons per year, the report
authors maintain.

The planned shipping operations along the far northern route will be of
major risk both to the vulnerable marine environment and to the ships
and their crews. The Northern Sea route which stretches all along
Russia’s Arctic coast, has hardly any emergency and rescue facilities
available. A crisis situation with one of the ships operating the route
might have catastrophic consequences.

The increasing interest in Arctic shipping was also on the agenda when
the foreign ministers of Russia, Norway, Finland and Sweden met in the
Barents Euro-Arctic Council session in Murmansk last week. The foreign
policy leaders agreed to step up cooperation within emergency and
rescue in the area. From before, the four Barents countries are
successfully hold bi-annual joint rescue and emergency training
operation. The Barents Rescue was this year held in Murmansk Oblast.

Source: Barents Observer

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