Since the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared past year that shipping traffic through the Arctic’s Northern Sea Route must be raised to a steep range of 80 million tons yearly within a mere five years tenure, the emperor’s wish has been treated as reality.
The May presidential declare had the ring of the old-fashioned Communist five-year plans, which, throughout the communist era, were the economic yardstick of the Soviet economy. The forfeitures for coming up short were harsh, with under-producing bureaucrats singled out for public humiliation, the Gulag and worse.
Today’s generation of doers heard Putin’s message loud and clear. Huge industries, like Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear corporation, have discreet their focus toward Arctic port and infrastructure development. The Yamal LNG project, a $27 billion natural gas endeavor, reached full capacity on the tundra above the Russian Arctic circle a year ahead of schedule, announcing a bustling year-round sea business with gas markets in Asia and Europe alike. Moscow’s nuclear icebreaker fleet is already huge in the world, is getting a facelift, with three new billion-dollar vessels nearing finalization and several even bigger ones in the pipeline.
The Russian state policy on climate change, instead of coping rising temperatures, seems geared towards allowing them to heat up. The more the Arctic melts, the Kremlin logic seems to offer, the more accessible it will become – complete with new Russian hydrocarbon and mineral reserves and more ice-free shipping lanes regulated by Moscow to bear out the bounty. A report in the Russian business newswire RBK daily showed a number of Putin’s ministers are getting a little anxious about how they will carry on the Arctic plan Mr. Putin is demanding – and they’re trying to come up with a way to soften the news.
The Ministry of Natural Resources bears specific responsibility for increasing shipping weights. It has only guaranteed a traffic flow of 52 million tons per year by 2024, well short of the 80 million tons Putin is challenging as reported by RBK. These figures were part of a presentation the ministry made to the leaders of nine zones in Russia’s the Arctic on Christmas day – and the proceedings were afterward shared to RBK.
According to records, the ministry estimated that by 2024, LNG shipments along the Arctic will reach only some 40 million tons, pursued by 9.2 million tons of oil, and 3.2 million tons of mineral ores from Norilsk Nickel, one of the world’s largest nickel producers based in Northern Siberia. The ministry presentation to Arctic leaders singled out assurance made by various Russian business magnates to add to their industries’ production – but cast shade on whether they could live up to their claims.
One of such assurances came from Dmitry Bosov, one of the heads of VostokCoal, a Russian coal mining company with grand backing from the Kremlin. Bosov made into the headlines in November with a commitment to ship out 30 million tons of anthracite coal every year from the Arctic’s Taymyr Peninsula. But the Natural Resources Ministry laid the differences in Bosov fulfilling that goal at only about one in five.
Likewise, Russia’s Neftgaz Holdings, an oil company, said, that it will ship out five million tons of oil from a field at the opening of the Yenesei River by 2024. But the ministry rubbished those plans as well. The Ministry might be able to come up with the amount Putin promised they would. It could simply, and literally, move the aims established, as reported by the RBK.
Present measurements of what, exactly, constitutes the Northern Sea Route are set by Russian legislation and extend from near the Bering Strait in the East to the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago in the West – a distance of approximately 4,800 kilometers. One way of getting more cargo in the water would be to clearly return to the boundaries of the Northern Sea Route itself. If its Western terminus were extended beyond Novaya Zemlya to the busier Pechora or the Barents Sea, cargo weights would blow up accordingly. – Certainly to the president’s pleasure. Similarly, the ministry has glowing predictions if it measures Arctic traffic against a limit that not as urgent as 2024. If projections are extended to 2042, the ministry then estimates that annual traffic will extend as high as 155 million tons.
But here arises a question that how Mr. Putin will take this news. For an instance, lot many news of this is assured to come up at Bellona’s Arctic Fuel Menu and Northern Sea Route conference on Wednesday, January 23.
