Northeast Passage to become major new shipping route?

Saving money in the shipping industry is all about time and fuel, so to have a new, shorter route from Europe to Asia has been welcomed by companies as two German ships became the first commercial vessels to navigate the Northeast Passage - a route that takes ships through the Arctic Ocean and around the north of Russia to reach Asia.

The new route, that allows ships to travel from the Netherlands to South Korea (stopping over in Arkhangel in Russia) cuts the distance for ships by 75 percent meaning transit can take as little as 10 days without having to navigate the pirate-infested waters around Africa. Up until now, the only shipping route available ran to India via the Suez Canal, meaning ships often had to pass through Somali waters, made infamous in recent years from the number of high profile hijackings.

The new route, however, has only been made possible due rising global temperatures. Before now, the route was almost impassable due to the levels of ice around the route. Today, there is hardly any.

"There was virtually no ice on most of the route. Twenty years ago, when I worked in the eastern part of the Arctic, I couldn't even imagine something like this," said Valeriy Durov, shipmaster of The Beluga Foresight, one of the two ships to make the journey.

"I think it will soon be possible to navigate the Northeast Passage all year round. We were escorted by an ice-breaker but, frankly, we could have done without it. This is great news for our industry."

Great news for shipping, bad news for the environment with many experts predicting there will be no ice at all in the Arctic within the next few decades.

"This is a very clear signal of how weak the Arctic ice has become," says Alexei Kokorin of WWF Russia.

"The area of really heavy ice in the Arctic is now 10 times smaller than 10 or 20 years ago. Global warming is becoming more and more dominant - and it will affect all of us."

The new route will be beneficial for the likes of Russia however, with Arkhangel destined to become a major shipping hub.

"This is an event of huge strategic importance," said chief commercial officer of the Arkhangel Sea Port Viktor Vorobyov. "It will signal the rebirth of this shipping route, and the renaissance of the whole of the Russian North."

This however remains to be seen, the Suez Canal route is currently an industry standard and Russia's Arctic infrastructure is non-existent at the moment, not to mention the bureaucratic procedures needed before a shipping route can be established, but for now Europe's shipping firms may have found a cheaper, more lucrative option, though one that comes only at the planet's expense.

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