China-Russia Announce Plans for Five Ice-Capable Containerships for Year Round Arctic Service
Container ship traveling through the Arctic. (Source: Maersk)
Russia and China's collaboration in the Arctic continues, now with new plans to build high ice-class containerships to begin year-round shipments on the Northern Sea Route. Though the details, including the size of the vessels and who will build them, remain scarce.
Following seven Arctic container voyages in 2023 and more than a dozen in 2024, China’s NewNew Shipping Line looks set to take the next step to expand its services along the Northern Sea Route.
As part of a Russian-Chinese joint venture, the company is planning to construct five Arc7 ice-class container ships. The vessels will be deployed on the Arctic Express route connecting Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo with St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk. The cooperation was announced by an Atomflot official at a shipping forum in St. Petersburg.
NewNew Shipping Line operates a number of no and lower ice-class vessels allowing it to travel across the Arctic on the Northern Sea Route between July and November. To further expand operation into the shoulder season or eventually the winter months, more ice-capable vessels will be required.
No additional details about the vessels’ size or construction have been released. Though officials previously stated a need for 15 ice-class ships with a capacity of up to 5,000 containers or TEU.
Container ships getting bigger
The size of container ships on the Arctic route has increased substantially over the past two years. Following smaller feeder-type vessels in 2023, this summer saw several much larger Panamax container ships with a capacity of close to 5,000 TEU. In a recent report Norway’s Center for High Logistics detailed that around 145,000 tons of containerized cargo had traveled between Russia and China this summer.
A key question relates to where the new ice-class container vessels will be constructed. Russia’s Zvezda and Baltic shipyards are at capacity with lengthy order books for nuclear icebreakers and ice-class LNG and oil carriers. And sanctions have impacted availability of Western technology in Russia, e.g. azimuthing propulsion units, marine propellers that can rotate 360 degrees.
Chinese yards have constructed a number of high ice-class vessels in recent years, including the heavy lift vessels Audax and Pugnax and more recently the oil tankers Boris Sokolov and Anatoly Lamekhov.
Unlike ice-class LNG carriers, whose gas containment system makes construction more complex, ice-capable container vessels will be relatively straightforward to construct, say industry analysts. Chinese yards know how to build containerships and know how to build ice-capable ships including heavy icebreakers.
The world’s first Arc7 ice-class oil and condensate tanker, Boris Sokolov, was launched by Guangzhou Shipyard International Co. (GSI) in China in 2018. Several others have since followed.
