Sevmorput master going ...
So, first about the super-ambitious task that was set up during the discussion: by 2030, the volume of freight traffic through the Northern Sea Route should grow as much as 20 times! About this, in particular, said the first deputy chairman of the government Arkady Dvorkovich.
The concept of “must grow”, as is well known, differs significantly from the concept “may or may not grow”, and therefore the carrying capacity of the Northern Sea Route and its attractiveness for Russian and foreign cargo carriers should be discussed separately.
What we have today with the volume of transportation of goods through the SMP? We have 4 million tons. This figure was voiced by the aforementioned Dvorkovich. On the one hand, this is a good figure, given the fact that more in modern Russia (from 1991) on the Northern Sea Route has not yet been transported. 4 mln. Tons, for example, is 4 times higher than in 2010. And if you start comparing to the Soviet comparison, then 4 mln. Tons is inconceivably more than in the 1913 year ... But if you pay attention to the volume of the sample not 1913, but 2013, then that year All the same 4 mln. tons were transported through the Northern Sea Route. In other words, over the past two years, the Northern Sea Route has demonstrated a zero growth rate in freight traffic.
Another important fact: the preservation of freight rates at 4 mln. Tonnes was due, so to speak, to the search for internal reserves - in particular, the opening of a new port, used mainly for loading hydrocarbons produced in the Far North. We are talking about the port of Sabetta (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District). The port provides cargo transshipment at the South Tambey gas and condensate field. The first ships began to load in Sabetta in the fall of 2013 of the year. And if it were not for the activation of cargo transportation thanks to this northern port, the volume of maritime transport through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) would have significantly decreased, as transit volumes reduced companies from Southeast Asia who have experienced what the Northern Sea Route itself has been.
It was against this background that the government stated that in 15 years, the volume of freight traffic across the Northern Sea Route should grow to 80 million tons. This, by the way, is about a third of the transit indicators of the traffic of the Panama Canal.
How is the Russian government going to attract foreign companies that are engaged in sea freight from Europe to South-East Asia and back? The first thing that is said at any government meeting on the development of the Northern Sea Route is the fact that the passage of ships through the NSR is much shorter in distance than the passage through the Panama or Suez Canals. In some cases of transit from the European to the East Asian port, the distance during the transition through the NSR is significantly lower. Such a “savings” in mileage is up to a third of the way.
It would seem, what else do you need to operate in a conversation with cargo carriers? A third less in the distance, which means a third less in cost ... But in the case of the Northern Sea Route, there is no direct proportionality between nautical miles and rubles (dollars, yuan, etc.). The reason, in principle, is obvious. Time of movement along the Northern Sea Route in some cases, frankly, is not much different from the time of movement along a route, for example, through the Suez Canal, if again we are talking about transit from Europe to South-East Asia and back. The point is in the speed of movement, which is by definition higher in the more southern sea latitudes, because in the case of movement along the Northern Sea Route often (very often) you have to use the services of an icebreaker. And the existing icebreakers simply by the nature of their work, as it happens, do not develop "cosmic" speeds ... But even if you try to pass the Northern Sea Route in the "ice-free" mode (which is only seasonal, and even that is risky), then you need to talk about ice-class vessels , the use of which costs significantly more expensive than the operation of conventional dry cargo vessels, tankers, etc. So it turns out that the ship seems to be saving on fuel when crossing the Northern Sea Route, but at the same time, the savings can be reduced to no Rata is not determined distance of the route and travel time and the ship's class.
However, if everything was so pessimistic, and if there was no way to extract any benefits from the movement along the Northern Sea Route, then China, for example, would hardly have plans to raise the volume of freight traffic through the NSR to the same 2030 year before 15% of the total volumes. Given the fact that China is among the largest maritime freight forwarders, these plans of the PRC should positively affect the workload of the NSR. However, China will obviously not “drive” its vessels through the Arctic Ocean if everything on the Northern Sea Route remains the same as it does now - without a relatively developed port infrastructure, without a guaranteed cargo security system in difficult Arctic weather conditions.
That is why - to improve the infrastructure and service systems of the NSR (including to increase the speed of the courts) - the government is going to invest in the most serious ways. Of course, it was not China that pushed for investments in the Northern Sea Route, but with the understanding that the Northern Sea Route could become a really profitable route for maritime freight in the near future. In the end, for the transportation of goods, for example, from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok by sea, the alternative to the NSR is difficult to consider, if we proceed from the issue of pragmatism and the development strategy of this traffic direction.
The government is going to invest in the construction of new icebreakers. This so-called super-atomic icebreaker is a real monster of the northern seas, capable of breaking ice up to 400 cm thick. It is also “shallow-sitting” icebreakers that will be used to guide the vessels of the Yamal-LNG project. The more ships will be in the icebreaker segment fleet Russia, so to speak, will become more alive on the Northern Sea Route.
For example, on May 26, a solemn ceremony of laying down the first 22220 project’s first all-purpose universal nuclear-powered icebreaker took place at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. The same enterprise is also building the lead universal nuclear icebreaker of this project. Reactor installations for new icebreakers are manufactured at Atomenergomash enterprises. The Afrikantov OKBM is the developer and complete supplier for the project.
The head icebreaker LC-60 of the 22220 project has a length of 173,3 m, width - 34 m, draft on the design waterline - 10,5 m, minimum operating draft - 8,55 meter, displacement - 33,54 ths. Tons. The icebreaker is planned to be used in the western region of the Arctic: in the Barents, Pechora and Kara seas, as well as in the shallower parts of the mouth of the Yenisei and in the Ob Bay area. The total value of the contract at the time of signing is 39,9 billion rubles. Deadline - 30 December 2017 of the year.
In addition to the construction of new icebreakers for the development of the Northern Sea Route, it is planned to continue the improvement of the port infrastructure, which will allow creating several large transshipment points by 2018, which can reduce the total cost of transporting cargo in the northern latitudes.
If all this work is implemented, the Northern Sea Route is indeed capable of becoming the most important direction both for the economical transit of foreign cargo, as well as for the large-scale transportation of goods between Russian regions. But to realize these goals, working in the form of government meetings alone will obviously not be enough.
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