Two German cargo ships have successfully navigated across Russia’s Arctic-facing northern shore from South Korea to Siberia — without the help of icebreakers, the shipping company said.
The two merchant ships, which belong to Beluga Shipping Gmbh, were able to make the cost-saving voyage by the fabled Northeast Passage because of the reduction in ice as a result of global warming, the company said.
“We are all very proud and delighted to be the first Western shipping company which has successfully transited the legendary Northeast Passage and delivered the sensitive cargo safely through this extraordinarily demanding sea area,” Beluga CEO Niels Stolberg said in a statement on the company’s Web site.
The ships are carrying a cargo of “heavy plant modules,” the statement said.
The Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight left the Russian port of Vladivostok with cargo picked up in July in South Korea, bound for the Netherlands.
They dropped anchor at the Siberian port of Yamburg on Monday, Beluga said.
The Northern Sea Route trims 4,000 nautical miles (7,400km) off the journey via the Suez Canal, which Beluga has said would yield substantial savings in fuel costs and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
The company got the clearance of Russian authorities to navigate the route last month.
“Russian submarines and icebreakers have used the Northern Route in the past but it wasn’t open for regular commercial shipping before now because there are many areas with thick ice,” Stolberg said in an e-mail interview at that time.
“It was only last summer that satellite pictures revealed that the ice is melting and a small corridor opened which could enable commercial shipping through the Northeast Passage — if all the circumstances were right and the requirements were met,” he said.
Stolberg said Beluga was eager to send ships through the northern route last year during a six to eight-week “window” in August and September when temperatures in the region rise to 20ºC or more.
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