The administration staff of the Northern Sea Route’s western sector will be moved from Dikson to Murmansk, MBnews.ru reports. The importance of the sea route is increasing strongly as Arctic ice melting makes new waters open for sailing and industrial project are initiated. New hydrocarbon projects in the Russian Arctic will require improved ports and shipping regulations in the far north. Among the planned projects are the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, the Prirazlomnoe field in the Pechora Sea, gas fields in the Yamal Peninsula, oil fields in the Timan-Pechora province, as well as offshore fields in the Ob, Yenisey and Lena river basins. In order to secure safe shipping along the route Russia will need a minimum of ten icebreakers, among them six nuclear-fuelled. In addition, seven ice-protected tankers with a total transport capacity of 378,000 tons and 18 cargo vessels need to be built, MBnews reports. Shipping along the Northern Sea Route is to be boosted to 4-7 million tons by 2010 and then to 13-15 million tons by 2015, the Transport Strategy states. The Northern Sea Route is the shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the northern Russian coast. The vast majority of the route lies in Arctic waters and parts are only free of ice for two months per year. Before the beginning of the 20th century it was known as the Northeast Passage. In the 1980s, Russian shipping on the route amounted to 6-8 million tons per year.
