Rosatom Plans to Make the North Sea Route Truly International

The 9th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF – 2024) has just ended in Vladivostok Russia. Representatives from 40 nations participated at the forum including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

As part of the business program a session “The Northern Sea Route and its Logistics Potential” was organized which was addressed by Alexey Likhachev, Director General of Rosatom. In his address, he focused on developing the Northern Sea Route.

"We still have to do a lot to make NSR a truly attractive, comfortable, and safe international transport route. We consider it a large corridor from our northwestern ports, including Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, to the Far Eastern ports of Vladivostok and Sakhalin. One of our strategic goals is to make the NSR an effective transport artery connecting Europe, Russia, and the Asia-Pacific region,” noted Alexey Likhachev.

“Another federal project for the development of the "Great" Northern Sea Route - a transport corridor from St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, is also underway.” Nuclear icebreakers are now operating along the route in the summer as well, he informed.

In 2018, the Russian Government appointed Rosatom as the infrastructure operator of the Northern Sea Route. Rosatom oversees the federal project "Development of the Northern Sea Route". The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is a shipping route about 5,600 kilometers long. It is the shortest shipping route between the western part of Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific region. The entire route lies in Arctic waters and within Russia's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). There are six major seaports on the NSR route in the Arctic Zone of Russia.

For being considerably shorter than the existing sea routes between Asia and Europe NSR is expected to attract more and more countries to use it substantially reducing dependence on the Suez Canal. For example, the distance from Murmansk (Russia) to Yokohama (Japan) through the Suez Canal is 12,840 nautical miles, but only 5,770 nautical miles through the Northern Sea Route. Sailing along the NSR can also help to reduce emission costs due to shorter distances.