的因素之一。”
俄罗斯财经大学副教授瓦列里·安德里亚诺夫补充道：“在近期，北方航道大概不会成为苏伊士运河的替代品，因为西方国家正试图将制裁扩大到这条航道上的运输。”
安德里亚诺夫指出：“西方制裁大大增加了沿北方航道运输液化天然气的难度。至于过境运输，由于政治因素，出现问题的风险更大。这条航线主要用于运输俄罗斯石油。但从长远来看，北方航道将主要是把中国货物运往欧洲的干线。俄罗斯需要维护这一事实，即选择北方航道比苏伊士运河甚至比通过非洲南部好望角的航线盈利更多。”
安德里亚诺夫认为，俄罗斯石油的运输使北方航道成为可盈利的航线。这不仅有助开拓新市场，还能确保该航线的基本运输量。
Северный морской путь становится привлекательным из-за
атак хуситов в Красном море
Ожидается, что грузопоток по Северному морскому пути до конца года
составит 71 млн тонн, а в период 2024-2035 годов – 1,8 млрд
тонн.
БАКУ, 31 мая — Sputnik. Северный морской путь (СМП) становится
более привлекательным для компаний, занимающихся грузоперевозкой,
так как йеменские повстанцы 'Ансар Аллах' (хуситы) продолжают
нападать на торговые суда в Красном, Аравийском и Средиземном
морях, пишет Foreign Policy.
Согласно изданию, атаки хуситов привели к значительному увеличению
цен на страховку грузов, перевозимых по Красному морю. Так,
например, в Норвегии цены на страхование военных рисков выросли в
100 раз с октября 2023 года и достигли примерно 1% от стоимости
транзита грузового судна через Красное море.
По этой причине некоторые грузоперевозчики стали рассматривать СМП
как альтернативу маршруту, проходящему через Красное море.
В статье Foreign Policy указывается, что морские государства на
протяжении веков воспринимали СМП как потенциальный более короткий
маршрут, соединяющий Европу и Азию, но суровые климатические
условия в Арктическом регионе долгое время препятствовали
полноценному использованию этого пути.
Сегодня процессы изменения климата в Арктике проходят в четыре раза
быстрее, чем в других регионах, и стремительное таяние льдов
способствовало возобновлению дискуссии об использовании СМП,
говорится в материале.
Кроме того, как отмечается, расстояние между некоторыми частями
Европы и Азии в рамках СМП составляет всего 8 тыс. миль (12,8 тыс.
км), тогда как протяженность пути, проходящего через Суэцкий канал,
равна почти 13 тыс. миль (20,9 тыс. км).
Более сотни ударов хуситов по торговым судам
На прошлой неделе лидер группировки 'Ансар Аллах' Абдель Малик
Аль-Хуси заявил, что их военные силы с ноября прошлого года
атаковали 119 кораблей, связанных с Израилем, США и
Великобританией, в Красном, Аравийском морях, Аденском заливе,
Индийском океане и Средиземном море.
А на этой неделе было заявлено о проведении шести операций против
американских судов, одно из которых получило серьезные повреждения.
Кроме того, в минувший понедельник хуситы объявили об атаке
ракетами на три американских и израильских судна в Индийском океане
и Красном море, а также об атаке беспилотников на два американских
эсминца в Красном море.
В результате действий хуситов страдает мировое судоходство. Так,
согласно отчету консалтинговой компании в области судоходства
Clarksons, количество контейнеровозов, проходящих через Красное
море, в нынешнем году сократилось на 90% по сравнению с тем же
периодом прошлого года.
В то же время объем грузоперевозок по Суэцкому каналу за последний
год упал на две трети из-за перенаправления транспортных средств
из-за атак хуситов, а грузоперевозки по другой важной судоходной
артерии – Баб-Эль-Мандебскому проливу – сократились на 59%.
В 2024 году грузопоток по СМП должен составить 71 млн тонн
Вице-премьер – полномочный представитель президента РФ в
Дальневосточном федеральном округе (ДФО) Юрий Трутнев заявил, что
грузопоток по Северному морскому пути в 2024 году должен составить
71 млн тонн, а в период 2024-2035 годов – 1,8 млрд тонн.
В пятницу Трутнев провел заседание президиума государственной
комиссии по вопросам развития Арктики, в повестку которого вошел в
том числе вопрос о выполнении обязательств по грузопотоку в
акватории Северного морского пути.
'В 2022 году подписано трехстороннее соглашение между
Минвостокразвития, компанией 'Росатом' и шестью крупными
грузоотправителями. Посмотрим, как идут дела', – сказал полпред
российского президента.
The Geopolitics of New Arctic Shipping
Lanes
Turmoil in the Middle East makes the Northern route more
attractive, if still treacherous.
By Jack Detsch, a Pentagon and national security reporter at
Foreign Policy, and Robbie Gramer, a diplomacy and national
security reporter at Foreign Policy.
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: The geopolitics of new
shipping lanes in a warming Arctic, the forgotten war in Sudan
takes a grim new turn, Iran boosts its uranium enrichment program,
and more.
The Northern Route
OSLO, Norway—The hits to global shipping just keep coming.
With the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen still taking shots at
commercial vessels in the Red Sea, traffic there is down almost 60
percent from a normal year. And even for those Western ships brave
enough to make the trip, the cost of insurance for transiting the
Bab el-Mandeb Strait has skyrocketed.
Norway, which has the world’s fifth-largest merchant fleet and
largest mutual war risk insurance pool, has seen prices increase
100 times since the Houthi attacks began in October 2023, to about
1 percent of each ship’s value per transit through the Red Sea,
said Audun Halvorsen, the director of the emergency department for
the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association.
The high price of Middle East transit routes. The surging costs and
fear of getting hit by Houthi drones and missiles have led some
shippers to consider the Arctic as an alternative, as melting ice
begins opening new potential on the so-called Northern Sea
Route.
Stretching from the Barents Sea near Russia’s border with Norway
all the way to the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska, the
Northern Sea Route has been eyed by major naval powers as a
possible shortcut for sea travel between Europe and Asia for
centuries, but the region’s unforgiving frozen climate and extreme
remoteness have made such ambitions infeasible.
But today, climate change is occurring four times faster in the
Arctic than anywhere else on the planet, and massive levels of ice
melt in the region from rising global temperatures have led to wild
speculation about the route becoming commercially viable in the
near future.
At first blush, going north looks promising. The route is about
8,000 miles between some parts of Europe and Asia, compared with
about 13,000 miles for the Suez Canal route. The ability to slash
some 5,000 miles off a ship’s journey would mean much faster travel
times—a major plus in today’s world of online retail and next-day
delivery.
But here in Norway, where the midnight sun will keep it light out
all day and all night for the next three months of the year,
officials and experts are skeptical that the route will be viable
anytime soon.
“Short answer, viability close to zero,” Halvorsen said. “It’s not
a realistic alternative in the foreseeable future.”
Treacherous waters. Why the pessimism? It’s a combination of
great-power politics and treacherous terrain.
Russian authorities control most of the Northern Sea Route,
Halvorsen said—about 70 percent of the Arctic—and ships wanting to
use the route must secure the Russians’ permission and pay them
transit fees. Given current relations between many Western
countries and Russia amid the Ukraine war, that poses an obvious
challenge.
The waters close to the shoreline that are safest for navigation
are also very shallow, which means shippers would need to cut down
their tonnage and use vessels smaller than container ships or go
farther out to sea where the weather is much worse.
There’s very little ability to get search and rescue boats into the
area. If a vessel like the Ever Given—the 1,300-foot-long container
ship that ran aground and snagged traffic in the Suez Canal (and
lit social media ablaze) for six days in 2021—got stranded here,
there might be no way to get it out. Lucky crews might get
helicoptered out. Unlucky crews could risk being polar bear
food.
Shippers would also need vessels strong enough to withstand thick
polar sea ice to get through, which would raise the price even
more. And once the midnight sun goes down in August, the Arctic
Circle will be engulfed in 24-hour darkness for the next six
months.
Even with melting ice sheets now accounting for more than a quarter
of sea level rise, experts said the ice conditions in the Arctic
have been more challenging in the past decade, not less.
“Due to the distances, the weather, the darkness, [and the]
floating ice, the predictability of moving along this route is so
low that it’s not worth the reduced number of days compared to
around either Suez or Africa,” Halvorsen added.
Not so limitless. China may be interested in trying to transit the
Northern Sea Route anyway, experts said, to show off its growing
great-power status. Doing that, however, could test the limits of
China and Russia’s self-described “limitless” partnership.
Beijing has even put out its own Arctic strategy centered on
extending its military capabilities into the region, developing
infrastructure, and participating in governance efforts—some of
which have been put on hold since Russia’s full-scale invasion of
Ukraine two years ago. But China might be wary of going too far,
especially since Russia still sees the region as its strategic
backyard.
“If China pushes Russia too hard in the Arctic, I think the
Russians would be very skeptical,” said Jo Inge Bekkevold, a senior
China fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS)
and a former Norwegian diplomat. “The main strategic asset of
Russia today is the Northern Fleet in the Arctic. And this is one
area where I think they would like to keep China at a certain
distance.”
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
Washington-based think tank, reported last year that Russia has
three major bases in the region, 13 airfields, and 10 radar
stations. And the Northern Fleet’s submarine base at Gadzhiyevo is
only about 125 miles from the Finnish border, which is now NATO
turf.
“Russia’s attention for the High North has been standing strong,”
said Katarzyna Zysk, a scholar at IFS. “The Northern Fleet is still
capable of performing its core missions.”
Baby steps. For now, China is making careful, calculated, and
limited moves to expand its influence in the Arctic—with an
emphasis on limited. Experts said the only Chinese projects that
have gained significant traction in the Arctic so far are gas
drilling rigs on the Yamal Peninsula in Russia.
In 2022, not a single Chinese vessel transited the Northern Sea
Route, said Henrik Stalhane Hiim, an associate professor at IFS
tracking China’s activity in the region. China has a research
station at Svalbard, Norway’s northernmost archipelago near the
North Pole, but it has been mostly quiet for the past four years
since the COVID-19 pandemic. And not a single Chinese navy vessel
has ever crossed the Arctic Circle, Hiim said.
But even for China, the biggest issue comes back to economic
viability. Most of China’s exports come out of the country’s
southern provinces, such as Guangdong, which provide easier access
to shipping lanes such as the Suez instead of northern routes. For
China, “it’s not shorter to sail. It’s longer,” said Bekkevold of
the Northern Sea Route. “Because if you sail from Shanghai through
the Indian Ocean, through the Suez, then you end up in Trieste in
Italy or Piraeus in Greece, that is shorter than sailing the
Northern Sea Route.”
And in the world of shipping, which relies on predictability, one
or two days of delay can lead to a big surge in costs.
For now, China has negotiated a hefty insurance discount for Red
Sea transits to protect its ships even as the Houthis continue to
target Western shippers. But chronic instability in the Middle East
will only make Arctic sea lanes, however treacherous, more
attractive to the emerging global superpower.
