Arctic Route Gets Attention After Suez Debacle

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  • The massive maritime traffic jam caused by Ever Given’s misadventure in the Suez Canal has highlighted the attractiveness of alternative routes via the North Pole.
  • It implies a shift that carries strategic and commercial implications for South-east Asia.
  • Russian authorities used the opportunity to promote their preferred route.
A recent news article published in the Straits Times and TRT World reveals that an alternative trading route is getting the attention after the recent blockage in one of the world’s most strategic waterways.

Ever Given floated free

The collective sigh of relief that Asian businesses heaved after the giant Japanese-owned container vessel Ever Given floated free in the Suez Canal after six days of being wedged into the side of the waterway is best explained by a single statistic: If you had needed to move Ever Given’s load of 20,000 containers by plane, it would have taken 2,500 Boeing 747 freighters to do the job.

An imaginable calculation

It now costs more than US$7,000 (S$9,400) to move a single container by sea from Northern Asia to Europe, which isn’t cheap.

Rail links are beginning to connect the continents, but are more expensive than sea freight still, which means several hundred extra dollars per container.

The benefits of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) 

  • Over the last few years, the cargo volume on the NSR increased from 7.5 million tonnes to more than 31 million in 2019.
  • Those numbers, however, pale in comparison to what passes through the Suez Canal.
  • In 2018 the Canal handled almost a billion tons of goods from shipping containers. The Suez Canal, by any measure, is not in danger of being usurped by the NSR.

One advantage that the NSR has is that it could slash journey times between South East Asia and Europe.

A container ship from China or South Korea can take around 34-40 days to reach the Netherlands, Europe’s central trading hub.

In contrast, the NSR route can take ships around 23 days. Russian authorities believe that the route could become viable by 2035.

Research by the Center for High North Logistics

Research by the Center for High North Logistics has found the vast majority of shipping through the NSR route is carried out between July, August, September and October, falling dramatically for the rest of the year.

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Source: Straits Times &  TRT World