Audit Chamber sees deficit of ships for Northern Sea Route

MOSCOW, Jan 13 (PRIME) -- Shipping companies that could transport a large amount of cargo through the Northern Sea Route lack Arctic-class ships and icebreakers, the Audit Chamber said in a report on Monday quoting interim results of a Russian infrastructure development plan.

“Several potentially large carriers for the Northern Sea Route, including LLC VostokCoal, LLC Severnaya Zvezda (Northern Star), and JSC Neftegazholding with a planned cargo traffic of 28 million tonnes in 2024, don’t have an icebreaker fleet or Arctic-class ships for transportation of cargo in the waters of the Northern Sea Route,” the report read.

VostokCoal plans to order the ships at Far Eastern shipyard Zvezda, but there are risks that Zvezda’s capacities won’t be enough to fulfill the order.

The analysis shows that the target of increasing cargo traffic through the route to 80 million tonnes in 2024 may be missed as the planned amount takes into account 5 million tonnes of cargoes of Neftegazholding. But the company is only conducting geological exploration on the Taimyr Peninsula now, and the amount of oil it produces there may not be enough to ensure the traffic, auditors said.

There are also risks of the Lavna coal terminal underperforming, as the share of coal in the energy balance of Europe has been gradually decreasing, the Audit Chamber said.

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