Melting ice opens new shipping route across the Arctic
Danish shipping company Maersk will send one of its new container ships to China from Northern Europe via the Arctic, EurActiv said.
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| Ice melts in the Arctic. |
The company said it would be a “test voyage” aimed primarily at gathering “scientific data.” Maersk has so far not considered the Northern Sea Route an alternative to its regular routes. The voyage is scheduled for September 1, EurActiv noted.
The Northern Sea Route could soon rival the southern route via the Suez Canal. With the new route, total shipping times could be reduced by two weeks. But due to ice, the route can only be used for three months a year, EurActiv explains. In addition, this requires expensive new ships called “ice-class ships”. But with global warming and the melting of the Arctic ice, it is very possible that the Northern Sea Route will become a real alternative for the world's shipping industry.
In fact, Maersk is not the only company exploring this route in the coming years: China and Russia have sent ships through the Arctic without the assistance of icebreakers, the newspaper notes.