Because Russia has been heavily sanctioned by Europe and the West due to its invasion of Ukraine, it has now rerouted its oil exports to China and Asia by using the North Sea Route (NSR) in the Arctic Ocean.
According to a High North News report, the country sent two initial crude oil shipments to China in mid-July, with four more oil tankers currently following the same route. Each of them would carry around 750,000 barrels of crude oil.
The first two tankers were named Scf Baltica and Korolev Prospect, both of them departing the Floating Storage Offloading Vessel (FSO) named Umba near Murmansk in the last 10 days.
The Arctic shortcut is around 30% faster than the traditional route through the Suez Canal, and experts said the NSR would be key to diverting the flow of crude oil away from Europe and toward Asia.
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Repurposing the NSR
Until recently, Russia used the NSR to send oil shipments to Asia only sparingly over the past decade. But with Western sanctions in place due to the war, transit volumes through the Arctic would likely expand fast.
S&P Global Russian energy specialist Matt Sagers told High North News Russia's Eastern oil pivot was always planned by the Kremlin.
"Use of the Northern [Sea] Route reduced the number of days at sea and therefore the number of tankers (and overall capacity) that is required to move oil eastward," he explained. "Entire upstream developments, like Vostok Oil, are intended to be evacuated via the route."
Increase in Shipping Activity May Harm Arctic Ecosystem, Environmentalists Warn
However, environmentalists have warned that expanding NSR flows would pose a serious threat to the delicate Arctic ecosystem.
Texas A & M University professor of maritime business administration Mawuli Afenyo said the increased traffic would increase the probability of an accident occurring in the region, with very dire consequences. Afenyo added the oil encapsulated in ice can quickly travel large distances before the ice melts and the oil gets released into the seas.
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