Search Company:
A fleet of forty ice-resistant ships, four renovated airports, new ports and rail links.
The ambitions in the Russian fifteen-year plan to tackle the infrastructure in and around the Arctic route are sky high.
They have been in the pipeline for a while, but just before the start of the new decade, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the development plan for the Northern Sea Route for the next 15 years. The online newspaper The Barents Observer reports this.
Permanent shipping
The plan includes no fewer than 84 points to be completed by 2035: from the development of the necessary infrastructure and the construction of new ships to the mapping of natural resources and the launch of new satellites and meteorological equipment.
Among other things, the Russians want to develop a permanent shipping connection via the Arctic waters north of Siberia as quickly as possible. In 2018, about 20.2 million tonnes of freight were transported via the polar route, largely Russian oil and gas. The Kremlin strives to increase the volume of freight via this route to eighty million tonnes in 2024.
Rosatom
State company Rosatom is closely involved in the creation and implementation of these plans. The nuclear conglomerate of around three hundred companies and 250,000 employees sees the polar route between Beringstraat and the North Sea as an alternative to the route between East Asia and Europe via the Suez Canal. The company wants to invest, among other things, seven billion dollars in financing in new ice-resistant container ships and port facilities on the so-called Northeast Passage.
Salient detail: President Vladimir Putin is the founder of Rosatom. In 2007, he signed the law abolishing the then federal atomic agency, after which all activities and possessions were transferred to Rosatom. Other companies that contribute to the plans include oil and gas giant Novatek, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft and the Independent Oil Company. Read more
Source: RAILFREIGHT.COM
