Russia wants to boost annual transit volumes on the Arctic Northern Sea Route from 1.3m tons in 2020 to 30m tons in 2030.
More specifically, Russia’s first deputy prime minister Andrei Belousov explained that by 2030, the country aims to reach a level of 150 million tons on the Northern Sea Route, of which 30 million tons will be transit.
Furthermore, during the next 10 years, a total of €11bn will be invested in infrastructure that will make the route navigable all year round.
For this reason, more than half of the total will be spent prior to 2024.
A major share of the investment will be by Rosatom, which is in the process of signing an agreement with DP World, the Emirati logistics company, on Arctic container vessels, some of which could be powered by nuclear energy.
As of now, the majority of the Arctic shipping volumes are by LNG carriers. Namely, in the last week of July, five major tankers were sailing on the route, with several heading to China.
