Page 26 - Журнал Sozvezdye Review - «СОЗВЕЗДИЕ» #42

tial to become first major Russia-Africa trade route with commodate ships as large as ocean-going container
wood-based products as its core. Besides, there is good carriers. Even with onboard capacity for 2,500-3,000
prospect for increased container shipments if we add containers, the haul to Asia-Pacific ports remains too
to them the petrochemical products from Tatarstan – costly because of soaring charter prices. The price level
the region with a short haul distance to Arkhangelsk. is too high to allow the use of the heavy-tonnage ships.
Another possible contributor to the Arkhangelsk According to the calculations by Rosatomflot, the
port’s deep water area’s turnover is containerized im- optimal carrier capacity range for cost-effective tran-
port/export flows to and from Asia-Pacific countries, sit via the NSR is 6,000 TEU. The sea passage to Asia is
especially given the shift in the Northern Sea Route’s rather long, requiring best depths and large, convenient
orientation from international transit to export-import container collection points with railway approaches.
shipments. Exporters in the European part of Russia are The efforts to revive container lines should rely on
looking to use shorter routes to the east (other than the the existing routes between industrially developed hubs
ports in Southern Russia and Russian Railways East- that can provide related services. Such hubs are based
ern Network). Many of them see Arkhangelsk transport in larger cities, and Arkhangelsk fits this definition as
hub as a promising channel. a major city in the Russian Arctic Zone.
The start to this new option has been given by Chi- One more promising sector to consider is fishing. If
na-based container operator Torgmoll. It complied first Asian exports should decrease, one way to make up for
batch of the container shipments to be carried from the shortage is by buying from the Russian Far Eastern
Arkhangelsk to Shanghai, the importers being Rus- fishing market, which has capacity to supply to Euro-
sia’s major retailers (Magnit, Pyaterochka, Sportmas- pean part of Russia more than two million tons of fish.
ter, among others), vehicle manufacturers, machine en- Some of it may well form part of general container traf-
gineers and shipyards that have opted in favor of NSR fic bound for the west, especially since fish has been
instead of Russian Railways Eastern Network. What Arkhangelsk’s traditional cargo.
played a role is their choice is geographical accessibili- At the same time, our focus shouldn’t be direct-
ty, by road, of the container distribution centers – Mos- ed solely towards outbound transit. Domestic transit
cow, Moscow Oblast, Saint Petersburg, and Volga-based should be given equal boost. Apart from its connection
clusters. to the economies of Russian hinterland, we can’t ex-
For the container lines to reach their full potential, pect the Northern Sea Route to yield any major break-
they need to have sufficient depths allowing for the en- throughs in terms of space or geostrategic objectives.
try of large-capacity container ships. Sufficient should
be also depths at loading berths (appx. 16 meters). There This railway section isn’t dead
are no such berths in Arkhangelsk or the seaports in
the Gulf of Finland. With exception of Bronka, all con- The need to provide ice-breaking escorts is faced by
tainer terminals in Saint Petersburg are shallow, with nearly all Russian ports. With exception of the Black
SOZVEZDYE #42 depths between 9 and 10 meters. This is because Saint Sea, ice-breakers operate within the harbor areas of ma-
Petersburg’s container operators have traditionally been
jor ports and along nearly all routes to provide year-
servicing Rotterdam-bound lines as feeder service pro- round navigation. The Russian ports have a long history
viders, so there was no need for their terminals to ac- of ice-routing and Arkhangelsk is no exception: its ice
перспективы
outlook Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk
Gulf of Finland
(estuarine harbors) (deep water area)
Average duration of 120 days 170 days 108 days
winter navigation
24 Average ice-routing 50–150 n. m 150–200 n. m 100–150 n. m
length