At the fleet’s current position, only four vessels are operating farther north: the Swedish icebreaker Oden, China’s polar icebreaker Xue Long, Norway’s research icebreaker Kronprins Haakon, and the ice-class expedition vessel Virgo, according to ship-tracking data.The routing places Russia’s Arctic oil fleet among the northernmost commercial vessels ever recorded. The route passes north of 81 degrees north, roughly 10 degrees farther north than Utqiagvik, Alaska, which sits at about 71 degrees north latitude....Arctic shipping experts say they cannot recall commercial traffic of this scale using the route, making the operation unprecedented despite isolated Soviet-era voyages several decades ago.The convoy includes the Suezmax tanker Dinasty, which industry observers say may become the highest-latitude commercial Suezmax tanker ever to operate. Suezmax vessels, among the largest tankers routinely engaged in international crude oil trade, are rarely seen operating in the high Arctic because of their size and the challenging ice environment...[T]he voyage remains challenging. Significant sea ice continues to cover parts of the East Siberian Sea. Three Russian nuclear icebreakers are currently deployed to escort commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route.
Desperate times, desperate measures they say.
7 comments:
What could possibly go wrong?
Be too bad is something was to happen to those pretty boats as they come around eastern Siberia and try to transit them dangerous Bering Strait waters or them monster-fouled waters further south.... There's pirates afloat, too.
Eric Hines
Ice Pirates? I saw that movie.
What about a pipeline?
Sabotage of those boats would get the environmentalists in an uproar. Oil-covered seals, and all that.
Gringo
Russia and the PRC already have an oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation deal, signed just before (?) their public swearing of eternal friendship, or some such. The deal is for the PRC to build a couple of pipelines to carry Siberian oil and gas into the PRC.
The PRC would provide the labor and the Russians would sell the oil and gas to the PRC at cut rates. Glitches have developed. Putin has decided to charge more for the oil than was agreed, and Xi has refused to buy altogether. Pipeline construction has been delayed and halted pending that dispute's resolution along with other disagreements over PRC labor inside Siberia, which Putin is starting to figure out is PRC colonization of Siberia.
I'm not sure the oil fleet across the top will be much of a long-term solution, especially since the PRC's need for oil is overblown, even with imports from Iran reduced. The PRC has lots of coal, has a new coal import deal with Australia, and is perfectly willing to burn the coal.
Oil covered seals? Boat sabotage? Who did that? Prove it.
Eric Hines
Oil covered seals? Boat sabotage? Who did that? Prove it
I was pointing out potential issues, not something that had already happened. As such, there was nothing to prove.
Gringo
Yes, I know. I was speaking as a hypothetical doer, having been accused. I'm also unaware of anything of the sort actually having happened. But the day is young and the voyage incomplete.
Eric Hines
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