Rosatom: cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route will exceed 270 million tons in 2035

The volume of cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route (Northern Sea Route, NSR) in 2035 will exceed the target by 50 million tons and amount to 270 million tons. This was announced by Vladimir Panov, special representative of Rosatom for the development of the Arctic, transmits TASS.

“According to the agreements that have been signed with all major shippers to date, plans for 2030 are 193 million tons, which exceeds the target of 150 million tons, and for 2035 we are already going beyond 270 million tons with a target of 220 million tons,” he said.

The number of cargo flights along the NSR will grow from 1,747 planned in 2024 to 3,381 in 2030 and 3,895 in 2035. By 2030, the number of high-class Arctic ships should also increase, which will provide year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route. Today there are 29 such vessels, 41 more are under construction, and by 2030 another 88 such vessels will be built, Panov added.

Northern Sea Route with a length of 5600 km runs from Murmansk to Vladivostok along the Russian coast of the seas of the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. Navigation in the eastern sector of the Northern Sea Route (from Taimyr to the Bering Strait) is impossible in winter without icebreaking assistance, the ice thickness there reaches 3 m. In 2021, the cargo traffic on the NSR amounted to 34.9 million tons. up to 1627 per year, and cargo traffic increased by 11%.

In 2022, 34 million tons of cargo were transported along the NSR, reported “Rosatom“. The total freight traffic along the NSR in 2023 is projected at 46.82 million tons. Vyacheslav Ruksha, Deputy General Director of Rosatom, also spoke about the possible excess of target indicators for cargo transportation along the NSR by “50-70 million tons”.

According to the development plan for the NSR, by 2030 the nuclear icebreaker fleet will include seven universal nuclear icebreakers of project 22220 (three of the seven were built: Arktika, Sibir and Ural), one nuclear icebreaker of project 10521 “50 Years of Victory “(Introduced in 2007), one lead nuclear icebreaker “Russia” of project 10510 and four non-nuclear icebreakers, Vedomosti wrote earlier. Now more than 40 icebreakers are operated in Russia.