Commercial Arctic shipping through the Northeast Passage: routes, resources, governance, technology, and infrastructure

Abstract

The Russian and Norwegian Arctic are gaining notoriety as an alternative maritime route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and as sources of natural resources. The renewed interest in the Northeast Passage or the Northern Sea Route is fueled by a recession of Arctic sea ice coupled with the discovery of new natural resources at a time when emerging and global markets are in growing demand for them. Driven by the expectation of potential future economic importance of the region, political interest and governance has been rapidly developing, mostly within the Arctic Council. However, this paper argues that optimism regarding the potential of Arctic routes as an alternative to the Suez Canal is overstated. The route involves many challenges: jurisdictional disputes create political uncertainties; shallow waters limit ship size; lack of modern deepwater ports and search and rescue (SAR) capabilities requires ships to have higher standards of autonomy and safety; harsh weather conditions and free-floating ice make navigation more difficult and schedules more variable; and more expensive ship construction and operation costs lessen the economic viability of the route. Technological advances and infrastructure investments may ameliorate navigational challenges, enabling increased shipping of natural resources from the Arctic to global markets.

Consequences of global shipping traffic for marine giants

“…); for instance, declines in Arctic sea ice have created potential new marine roads like the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage (Figure ; Buixadé Farré et al . ), which have shortened shipping routes between Europe and Asia by 35–60%, an economically preferable alternative to routes via the Suez and Panama canals (Arctic Council ). Potential environmental benefits would include fewer emissions, reduced fuel requirements, and less time spent travelling between locations.…”

Between classical and critical geopolitics in a changing Arctic

“…Infrastructure along the Arctic routes-ports, logistical support, and search and rescue facilities-have to be sufficiently developed. Against the backdrop of the prevailing harsh environmental and weather conditions, the viability and seasonality concerns of the shipping industry need to be addressed (Buixadé Farré et al, 2014;Humpert & Raspotnik, 2012;Lasserre & Pelletier, 2011). Nevertheless, the decreasing sea ice could be viewed as the impetusassuming other necessary conditions as outlined above are in placefor increasing the economic clout of Arctic coastal states.…”

“…Triggered by observing how physical changes in the Arctic take place in parallel with political developments in the same region, this article investigate whether the classical roots of geopolitics could help identifying any relationship between these two developments (Jørgensen, 2010, p. 79, 173, 213;Sidaway, Mamadouh, & Power 2013;Sheehan, 2005, p. 145;Chapman, 2011;Brutschin & Schubert, 2016). With changes such as ocean warming, ocean acidification, and rapidly shrinking sea ice, the Arctic Ocean is at present not only becoming navigable during the summer season but also facilitates increased human activity in a broad range of areas stretching from tourism and research to the utilization of living and non-living natural resources such as fisheries and oil and gas resources (Haug et al, 2017;Buixadé Farré et al, 2014;Armstrong, 2015). Climate change is therefore not only reshaping the physical geographies of the North but also its commercial, political, and scientific relevance and importance.…”

Climatic Responses to Future Trans‐Arctic Shipping

“…Of particular geopolitical interest is the so-called trans-polar route over the North Pole, the shortest theoretical crossing between the North Atlantic and the Bering Strait that circumvents central Arctic state territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones (Clarke-Sather et al, 2017). Although the economic viability of transit shipping along such Arctic routes is still debated (Brigham, 2010;Lasserre, 2015;Meng et al, 2016), ship traffic appears likely to increase in the coming decades due to increasing resource extraction, resupply of growing communities, and tourism (Farré et al, 2014;Yumashev et al, 2017).…”