According to Norway’s Barents Observer, Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom sent a loaded LNG tanker, Ob River, to Japan via the Arctic’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) this week.
The tanker, which has the capacity to carry 3.1 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent, or about 63,000 metric tons of LNG, set sail on Thursday from Statoil’s liquefaction plant at Hammerfest, Norway, on the shores of the Barents Sea. This traverse will be the first time a tanker carrying LNG has attempted the NSR.
Tankers like Ob River typically have to travel down through the Atlantic Ocean, through the Mediterranean, across the Indian Ocean and up to Asia. The standard trip takes tankers an extra three weeks when compared to the NSR.
The NSR is usually impassible to tankers, save for four months during the warmest parts of the year. But, with the apparent warming of the Arctic, sea ice has been thinner and less prevalent, leaving the route open for longer periods during the year.
