On route
Scaremongering or sensationalism for two seconds? Out of hundreds of tanker voyages to and from Russia, Bloomberg decided to write an article about one particular tanker voyage to China. The crude oil tanker Primorsky Prospect left Ust-Luga on 12/07 heading up to the Barents Sea. The tanker, built in 2010, is designed for Baltic winter operations and it has an ice class '1B'.
Bloomberg
This articles outlines some aspects related to the Northern Sea Route, (NSR) ship transits and some news snippets relating to the NSR and Russian shipping.
One point that does stand out is that transit shipments across the NSR are rare compared to destinational shipments, thus the transit of an laden Aframax tanker is indeed quite a rare event. But is it that newsworthy for Bloomberg to write an article? Or is there another agenda to the whole story?
To set the context: Transit shipping figures via the NSR for 2022 plummeted after the start of the SMO to 43 voyages, yet in 2021, accounted for just 85 out of a total of 3227 registered voyages. There were 660 voyages along the NSR made by tankers, (all sizes), the 2nd biggest category behind LNG carriers. 2022 transits of tankers: 5 tankers with 8 809 tons in total of oil products. So the 'Primorsky Prospect' with its 730,000 barrels of Urals crude is a quite significant shift in how the NSR is viewed as a shipping route.
Just wait until the hacks at Bloomberg discover that there is a whole fleet of oil tankers, operated by SCF, that will be able to transit the Northern Sea Route, in the near future. I suspect that they wouldn't have written this article (behind a paywall so I can't read it all), if the ship was operating in Asia. It just so happens it left the Baltic port of Ust-Luga. The voyage duration by using the NSR is greatly reduced, compared to the traditional southern route through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal.
Bloomberg stirring the pot over environmental concerns over a Russian shipment of crude oil, while the Japanese get to dump their nuclear contaminated waste into the Pacific Ocean. Remind me, what were Bloomberg's reports and serious concern over the gigantic amount of methane that was released after the sabotage of NS1 and NS2 last year? Of course, there are valid environmental concerns over such a large crude oil cargo, and this voyage won't the last one to use the NSR.
For reference, last year, one large tanker, the Vasily Dinkov (GRT - 49 597, LOA - 257 m) went from Murmansk to China in October-November in ballast.
Let's face it, Western MSM outlets are tiresome, it reflects the attitudes of Western elites. It is me me with the use of certain reference points.. like this example: Moscow seeks to expand the use of the Northern Sea Route in the face of Western sanctions, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
What's Western sanctions got to with the expansion of the NSR, when the major element of making the NSR more viable was initiated back in 2017? To be honest, Western shipping businesses have taken little interest in the NSR and back in 2019, (article) several major shipping entities decided not to use the NSR ostensibly for environmental reasons.
The 2021 figures show this: 45 international transits, 2022 figures = 0. This is out of 85 transit voyages, while the rest were destinational voyages within Russia. The main difference seen was with regards to China, as a number of these 2021 transit voyages started or finished in China and in 2022 there were none.
Since the implementation of Western sanctions, China and India are the primary destinations for Russian oil crude, (the previous destination of the 'Primorsky Prospect' was India). There is a significant shift in the market, away from Europe, as oil exports continue to grow, from Primorsk, Ust-Luga and Novorossiisk as this article shows.
In fact, the only part of the West that has a significant interest in the NSR is NATO.
Why the Northern Sea Route?
The NSR is the shortest water route between the European part of Russia and the Far East. The length of the route from the Kara Gates to Provideniya Bay is about 5.6 thousand km.
It seems that the voyage isn't a one-off, as another Aframax crude oil tanker, SCF Baltica, is on a westbound transit of the Northern Sea Route in ballast. There is a nuclear-powered icebreaker, 'Sibir', in the East Siberian Sea, that is ensuring that it can transit through the sea-ice safely by cutting a channel for the tanker. In fact, there are just around a dozen icebreakers, (nuclear and non-nuclear) out and about ensuring safety of navigation in ice-sea infested waters.
This voyage reflects well the fact that China trade with Russia in fossil fuels is on the upwards. There is already growing cooperation between China and Russia related to the Arctic, which as I reported in article back in March 2023, (GlobalSouth article) is causing some angst to NATO.
CNHL 2023
Yet, just this week, Russia planned to make more cuts to oil exports, starting in August, (article link), while at the same time, maintaining its current export schedule, following maintenance on some refineries in May.
The ministry said the cuts will impact both seaborne shipments from the Baltic Sea ports of Primorsk and Ust-Luga.
With this in mind, it is logical that current shipments will be sent via the shortest route and to speed up shipments as well. Chinese imports of Russian crude oil from the Urals was impacted in June, due to production cuts and higher refinery runs.
Other news snippets related to the NSR
Just a couple of days ago, Russian Prime Minster, Mikhail Mishustin gave additional instructions on the development of the Northern Sea Route, to make more viable and enhance navigational safety.
Russia just recently is in the process of actively developing large-tonnage shipbuilding, with plans to build more than 250 vessels by 2028. This fleet will be needed to ensure the trade, transport independence of the country and a key part of this is the NSR. For a nearly a decade, a fleet of nuclear icebreaker fleet is also being built for service on the Northern Sea Route.
The Chinese shipping company NewNew Shipping Line said it would send five vessels on a container route between Russian ports and China, on transit through the Northern Sea Route to the Baltic and Arkhangelsk, (Interfax July).
Talking about the Northern Sea Route, some sorely butthurt Ukrainians (in the form of the worst joke possible), the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption added one of the world's largest port operator, DP World, to the list of international sponsors of war. The reason is that last month DP World signed an agreement with the Russian state corporation Rosatom to develop the Northern Sea Route.