Northern Sea Route

1. The navigation of merchant ships along the northern sea route is seriously being considered by a number of ship operating companies because of the much shorter se distance involved between Europe and the Far East. Critically examine the technical, navigation, and operational issues that are involved in making such decision so that if it is agreed to adopt this route the risk can be minimised.Due to climate change, the Arctic Ocean ice is melting, producing global intervention and important variations in the political, economical and environmental aspects that open doors to the shipping industry. The next essay is focused in the important requirement in the operational, technical and navigational aspects that managers have to challenge to minimise the ice risk present in thisroute.

In the last few decades, the route in the Russian Arctic coast has improved and with resources such as nuclear-powered icebreaker, regular navigation is now available. The western way is kept open during the whole year, while the route that goes between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans is open for three to four months per year. Therefore the navigation is seasonal and the use of the ArcticOcean as a shorter connection between Europe and Asia/North America is still limited (Drent, 2000).

There are two kinds of use for the Arctic Ocean and they have significant differences in the legal and geographic terms; they are the Northeast Passage (NEP) and the defined by Russia as the Northern Sea Route. On one side, The Northeast Passage is a connection between Atlantic and Pacific usingvarious seas in the north of Russia and is covered from the legal perspective by international law. On the other side, The Northeast Passage is an internal Russian route used by trade and shipping, connecting different ports through the Barents Kara Seas and Bering, in the north of Russia (Drent, 2000).

Then, In the 1600’s, the European colonies were looking for short routes to reach Asia, sothe expeditions sent from Great Britain and The Netherlands to the Arctic Ocean were called the Northeast Passage. Due to the difficult ice conditions, all the expeditions failed to reach the Asian side. The first expedition that reached the other side was by the Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, who reached the Bering Strain onboard the steamer Vega in 1879 (Drent, 2000).

In the sameway, 200 years before, in the efforts of Russia to expand sovereignty to the east and north and expand the trade tides with the indigenous peoples, brought Russian expeditions to enter from the Arctic Ocean and descending by the rivers Ob, Yenisey, Lena and Kolyma of Great Siberia. It was a different route because it did not use the Arctic Ocean to connect both sides. Anyway Nordenskiold preferredthe route by the Great Syria Rivers for the usage, because he considered that the NEP had very difficult navigating conditions. Nevertheless Nordenskiold started sporadic trade voyages in what became knows as the Kara Sea Route with the contributions of Norwegian sealers (Drent, 2000).

After that, with the Russian revolution in 1917, the NEP was restricted just for Soviet vessels use and theSoviets were responsible for the industrial development of the economic activities in the Russian Arctic. Then the route was used as a war strategic point and support by the Soviet Union in the Second World War and in the Soviet Cold War, keeping the route closed to foreign vessels (Drent, 2000).

Consequently, The North Sea Route (NSR) was used for the integration of the Soviet Arcticinfrastructure and economy, and was used for the supplies to many indigenous, industrial, military and scientific settlements in the Arctic. Since 1970, the NSR was an important supply line for the development of the oil and gas industry for the North of Russia.

As the Soviet Union was dissolved, the NSR was opened to all foreign vessels use, but the international shipping industry didn’t give much...