Arctic shipping - a comparison study of the northern sea route and northwest passage

Abstract

One obvious sign that the world climate is undergoing global warming is the melting of sea ice in the Arctic region. As alarming as this news would bode for the future of the humankind, it has nevertheless brought about new opportunities for shipping companies. By making use of Northern Sea Route (NSR) and Northwest Passage (NWP) instead of the usual routes through Suez Canal or Panama Canal, substantial time and cost savings could be realized, thus potentially increasing profits for the company.

However, before embarking on decisions relating to Arctic shipping, many considerations have to be taken into account, such as feasibility of navigation and technological considerations that are discussed in this report. Feasibility aspects comprise ice and weather conditions, infrastructure in the Arctic and crew training. Technological considerations consist of technical requirements by international organizations and states in transiting NSR and NWP. It is also noted that there are factors unique to these Arctic routes, which could have an impact on the future shipping traffic.

To find a correlation between academic research and professional opinion, surveys were sent out to relevant sectors in the maritime industry and interviews were also conducted with maritime professionals. Research and survey results suggested that NSR is currently the more favorable of the two Arctic routes.