Page 40 - Журнал Sozvezdye Review - «СОЗВЕЗДИЕ» #39

Still, no further specifics have been provided since
then. And in all likelihood, neither have design speci-
fications been developed for ice-reinforced container
ships, nor the Russian shipyards received audit, and
hence it is too early to conclude on the financing par-
ty for the phantom Arctic-going container ships.
Therefore, the only Arctic container ships in op-
eration along the Northern Sea Transport Corridor
are the five 648 TEU feeder vessels owned by Norilsk
Nickel and built in 2006-2009.
Container transportation along the NSTC has in-
deed been a much discussed topic over the last four
or five years. Some experts believe, however, that its
future is dim: Under no circumstances can the NSTC
become a competitor to the Suez and the Panama Ca-
nals in the near future.
This opinion is shared by Alexander Kirichenko,
D. Sc. (Engineering), professor at Admiral Makarov
State University of Maritime and Inland Shipping In-
stitute for International Transport Management:
“Apart from length there are characteristics a ma-
rine route is defined by in the first place. The Arctic-
class container ships that are currently transporting
cargoes from Murmansk to Norilsk along the NSR
ration) developed a promising draft project of a multi- have the tonnage of 650 TEU, compared to 22,000
purpose 531/429 TEU sea/river Volga-Don Max type TEU of the main container carriers of today. There’s
dry-cargo vessel, designed primarily for transporta- always the economy of scale: the per-container trans-
tion of containers. That sounds good news, but it’s portation cost decreases with increased cargo capac-
still unclear, firstly, whether this sea/river ship de- ity.”
sign will ever reach the shipyards, and, secondly, its The construction cost of an 18,000 TEU TRIPLE
tonnage looks too small to cover the containerized E-class container ship, as quoted by Maersk, stands at
cargo transportation needs of Russian shippers and USD 190 mln, while that of a 650 TEU Norilsk Nick-
consignees. el type USD 82 million, the former having a per-
container cost of EUR 10555.56 and the latter EUR
Plowing through Arctic ice 126153.85. Besides, ice reinforcement isn’t a panacea.
with virtual container ships For the container ships to operate along the NSR, they
will require the assistance from icebreakers – a luxury
In recent years, the urgency of fostering domes- not every carrier can afford, Alexander Kirichenko
tic marine container transport has been mentioned said in an interview.
by the Russian government purely in context of the The expert believes that with the offshore oil de-
Northern Sea Transport Corridor (NSTC) project. posits the NSR is rather a route for shipping the pro-
Particularly, in mid-2020 the managers of Ru- duced oil and hardly has any potential as a container
satom Cargo – member of Rosatom State Corpo- shipping route, no matter the hopes the authorities
ration responsible for the development of NSTC – lay on it.
announced their plan to have the shipyards with “I doubt there’s a carrier willing to send any of its
potential for construction of Arc7 container ships au- giants on a voyage through the Arctic – it will simply
dited by the end of 2020. Further, in one of its earlier get stuck there. The Northern Sea Route runs above
presentations Rusatom Cargo announced its plan to the shelf and is shallow. The majority of its sections
have the Arctic-going container ships design docu- are yet to be covered by bottom investigations. Con-
mentation completed by mid-2022, a pilot series built sider a 59-meter-wide container ship with 15-meter
in 2024 and ships put into operation in 2025. draft and the necessity to have safety margin between
A few months earlier, Dmitry Sakharov, Depu- its bottom and the bottom of the sea. In some sections
ty Chief Designer at Iceberg Central Design Bureau, of the NSR the measured depths are under 12 m, and
mentioned in an interview that his team had worked the ship may have to deviate from course to avoid
out 30+ design options of the Arctic-going contain- drift ice. Another thing to be considered is the cruis-
er ships with carrying capacity between 3,000 and ing speed – it’s 22 knots in the Indian Ocean versus
20,000 containers and 1 to 3.5 m icebreaking thick- two to three knots along the NSR.”
ness, ordered by Rusatom Cargo. All things considered, even if Rusatom Cargo’s
“The design that seems to be most cost-effective plans become a reality (which is highly improbable
from perspective of the cargo traffic, is the one that in the years to come), we should not expect the ice-
has its cargo capacity between 5,000 and 10,000 con- reinforced container ships to be able to cover the Rus-
tainers, breadth between 43 m and 51 m, and is ei- sian shippers and consignees’ container transporta-
ther LNG-powered or installed with RHYTHM-400 tion needs.
type reactor. <...> We will also be looking into alter-
native fuel options, one being hydrogen. <...> Once we Ways of breaking the deadlock
have received the customer design specification, we
Some of the opinions we hear from the Russian
SOZVEZDYE #39 will proceed to front end engineering design,” Dmi- macroeconomics experts sound curious but absolute-
try Sakharov said in that interview.
Reiterating Rusatom Cargo’s plans was also ly unrealistic.
Yevgeny Dietrich, Director General at the State To give one example, Sergey Khestanov, adviser
флот Transport Leasing Company (and Minister of to director general at Otkritie Broker, said that “the
fleet Transport of the Russian Federation in the very re- logistics giants’ refusal to fulfill the cargo transpor-
cent past). In his speech at the Eastern Economic tation contracts won’t be a big problem for Russia.”
Forum in September 2021, he mentioned the intent “In fact, there’s no big tragedy here. Instead, this
to build eight container ships with a total capac- means new opportunities for some of Russian ship-
ity of up to 6,000 TEU, announcing also the State ping companies, since a certain volume of contain-
38 Transport Leasing Company’s preparedness to co- er traffic will be there anyway. It will be recalled
that even with inferior level of logistics and trans-
fund their construction.