The Norwegian company Knutsen OAS Shipping has received permission from Russian authorities to transport LNG from Snøhvit to Japan along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), says Synnøve Seglem in the shipping company to Skipsrevyen.
Russian authorities have given permission to transport gas with the 173 000 cbm ”Ribera del Duero Knutsen”, a DNV 1A ICE WINTERIZED class LNG tanker. The 3000 nautical miles long journey from Murmansk to the Strait of Bering is planned to take around two weeks.
Transportation along the Northern Sea Route is normally possible in the months June to October, and ”Ribera del Duero Knutsen” can make a maximum of three trips in one season.
Read also: Record long Arctic navigation season.
The whole journey from Hammerfest to Japan will take about one month, about half of the time it takes to take the route through the Suez Canal.
Knutsen OAS Shipping does not yet have any contract to transport Norwegian gas along the NSR.
Traffic along the Northern Sea Route has increased considerably in course of the last two years, and the route is expected to become even more important in the future. During the sailing season in 2011, 34 vessels sailed in transit from Murmansk to Asia – 30 more than the year before.
Operator of the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet Rosatom expects cargo transport on the Northern Sea Route to reach one million tons in 2012, but says that the potential cargo amount is a lot higher. What hampers the development is the lack of suitable vessels. According to Seglem in Knutsen OAS Shipping, there are several other companies with ice class LNG tankers that are interested in testing out the Northern Sea Route, NRK writes.
