MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The volume of cargo shipments along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will reach a record 34 mln metric tons in 2022, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
"Today, we have reached record levels in terms of transportation volumes - by the end of the year we expect 34 million tons. Further growth will follow as our projects develop and the infrastructure develops," the Deputy Prime Minister said.
According to Novak, the NSR development strategy, which was adopted this year, involves the development of a route for "northern delivery," as well as for the export of products to the European and Asian markets. At the same time, to ensure such work, the construction and upgrade of the icebreaker fleet is required.
"Such decisions have also been made, as just over the past two years three icebreakers have been launched and this year a new modern icebreaker with a capacity of 60 MW was launched. That means that the relevant structure is being created, the government pays attention to this," Novak said.
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the main sea line in the Russian Arctic sector. It stretches along the northern coasts of Russia across the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering seas). The route consolidates the European and Far Eastern ports of Russia and navigable river mouths in Siberia into a single transport system. The route’s length is 5,600 km from the Kara Strait to Providence Bay.