To promote the development of the Russian Arctic, national and regional authorities have invited foreign delegations from friendly countries to visit Arkhangelsk, in the hope of attracting port investment and demonstrating that the Northeast Passage is a booming route. But for experts, it’s all a case of déjà vu.
On the shores of the White Sea on August 8 and 9, representatives from China, India, the United Arab Emirates and 40 regions of the Russian Federation met to discuss the progress needed to develop transport and industry in the Arctic. According to the Russian press, the event was attended by 1,300 people.
The forum was held in the port city on the Dvina Bay. “Arkhangelsk will become a unique platform for dialogue between people sincerely interested in the development of the Russian Arctic,” declared Alexander Vitalyevich Tsybulsky, Governor of the Arkhangelsk region, at the opening ceremony. This industrial city is dynamic in the fishing sector, paper production and port activity.
Alexey Alsufiev, the Prime Minister of the same region, presented his plan for the growth of wind power in the island system – including New Zealand – managed by his administration. He envisages a reduction in the cost of transporting diesel to some forty energy plants.
This is of interest to Sergei Mikheev, General Director of ULNANOTECH, a company involved in the production of wind turbines, who, during the forum’s highlights, signed a contract with the Russian Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (KRDV).
The Russian Federation’s Deputy Minister for Far Eastern and Arctic Development, Gadzhimagomed Huseynov, also stated that the inclusion of the port of Arkhangelsk in the planned international trade route through the Arctic was under consideration.
“This forum is being presented as an initiative of the region’s governor, which is possible, but it’s one of Russia’s attempts to attract foreign investment interest,” explains Frédéric Lasserre, director of the Conseil québécois d’Études géopolitiques. “They want to continue leveraging their resources and the development of international shipping in a context where investors are skittish, due to the economic sanctions provoked by the war in Ukraine.”
Container transport
“I wish you productive work, developing solutions that will help maintain Russia’s leading position in the Arctic,” concluded Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council and close associate of Vladimir Putin, in his opening speech, invoking a “broadening of mutually beneficial international cooperation”.
Representing a Chinese company involved in the transportation of containerized goods through the Northern Sea Route, a man named Ke Jin reminded that his company was the first to invest in this sector last year, and that they would be increasing the number of trips this year.
“The Chinese company Newnew Polar Ship is chartering two 2,500-box container ships to trade between China and Russia,” explains Hervé Baudu, Professor of Nautical Sciences at ENSM and member of the Académie de Marine. “This doesn’t represent very significant traffic, it’s rather symbolic.”
According to him, the People’s Republic of China and Russia’s national company in charge of developing the Arctic trade route, Rosatom, are already engaged in the construction of new container ships.
Dubai-based shipping company DP World has also embarked on this path. “It has announced its interest in managing some of the ports that Russia would build in the region,” adds Frédéric Lasserre. It would be ready to invest in linear quays.
Trade with the capital
“Agreements have been signed between the Russian Arctic port of Arkhangelsk and Chinese ports to develop multimodal transport by rail and ship via Arkhangelsk and the Northern Sea Route, which enables containers to be transported from China to Moscow and St Petersburg,” explains Alina Kovalenko, a post-doctoral researcher at Maynooth University and a researcher at Nord University in Bodø.
What’s interesting about the western Russian Arctic, she says, is that Arkhangelsk has a ship-to-shore crane system more suited to container unloading than the port of Murmansk, even though the latter benefits, unlike Arkhangelsk, from ice-free water in winter.
“During our research on container transshipment operations at Murmansk port, it was challenging to find precise information about the types and number of container cranes, which led to assumptions in our analysis. However, during my visits to Murmansk, I noticed that ship-to-shore cranes could not be visually observed at the terminals from a panoramic viewpoint,” she recalls.
The Arkhangelsk-Moscow train line would also be less saturated than the rail link between Murmansk and St. Petersburg, the inevitable stretch to the capital.
Icebreakers
To intensify the passage of goods by Arctic sea, the opening of the passage “will require the consolidation of at least 14 icebreakers in the western and eastern parts of the Northern Sea Route by 2030”, said Vladimir Panov, Rosatom’s special representative for Arctic development.
Captain Sergey Zybko, head of Rosatom’s General Administration of the Northern Sea Route, believes that “the construction of icebreakers is key to the smooth operation and safety of the transport route.”
“Even though the Yakutiya, currently under construction, should be delivered on schedule, the rest of the series could be delayed,” explains Hervé Baudu of the 7-unit fleet project.
“Going ahead with icebreakers and developing rail and river interconnections with the Ob, Irtysh and Lena rivers are not new projects; Russia has been formulating them for some time,” notes Frédéric Lasserre. “But the problem is that it’s extremely expensive, and Russia doesn’t have any money left.”
Who will pay?
Russian bank Sberbank, Eurosib companies and the Arkhangelsk region signed development agreements during the forum. Dmitry Ravikovich, Deputy Director General for Economy and Finance at Eurosib, and Dmitry Yurkov, Representative of the Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region for Arctic Development, reiterated their willingness to invest in a deepwater port in Arkhangelsk.
“They were already talking about it before 2022, but on the route, there are anyway draught limitations that reduce the capacity of the ships,” notes Alina Kovalenko.
“The forum is organized by the Arkhangelsk Oblast, whose governor is particularly dynamic; they want to develop the port,” notes Hervé Baudu. “They’re trying to get themselves included in the budgets for the Arctic Route development plan.”
“Our analysis between 2017 and 2022 shows that Arkhangelsk has not received a significant volume of investment,” explains Alina Kovalenko. “I assume that the forum was organized there, because they need to find investors who would like to use this port.”
“To remove the existing brakes on infrastructure, we will apply the full range of government support measures, including budget investment,” declared Aleksey Olegovich Chekunkov, Minister of Eastern and Arctic Development.
“Traditionally, we pay a lot of attention to the development of the Northern Sea Route, port infrastructure and shipping, shipbuilding and repair, and personnel training for various industries,” Alexander Vitalyevich Tsybulsky, Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region, also said.
“The problem is that, even if we build great infrastructures, we can’t be sure that the ships will come. Today, most of the traffic is Russian ships,” notes Frédéric Lasserre. “To use the Northeast Passage, you need special ships and experienced crews, constraints that remain in these regions. Then there’s the commercial difficulty for companies to integrate these lines into their overall activities. As a result, very little transit is recorded.”
Western sanctions
Experts are at pains to point out that the North-East Passage will not be viable for some time to come. These sea routes are more favorable to the export of Russian raw materials to the outside world. Liquefied gas is the figurehead of this economy. But once again, sanctions are slowing down the development of the Arctic LNG2 plant. Modules of the third LNG production train were due to be delivered from China to Murmansk via the Northern Sea Route, but the convoy recently turned back.
Hervé Baudu explains: “It’s possible that the United States put pressure on us. The results of Russian company Novatek, owner of Yamal LNG and the Arctic LNG2 project, are loss-making for the first half of the year, with a wave of layoffs very likely in September at the construction site for the modules upstream of the port of Murmansk, where the gas liquefaction train should have been assembled.”
Camille Lin, Polar Journal AG
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