MURMANSK, March 27. /TASS/. Transit of cargos along the Northern Sea Route increased by 46% in 2024, head of the Ministry for Development of Russian Far East Aleksey Chekunkov said on the air of the Rossiya-24 TV channel. "Last year, the growth of transit reached 46%. It was decided to send several million tons, three million tons of cargo, not through the Suez Canal, but through the Northern Sea Route," he said.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev reported that the cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route in 2024 amounted to 37.9 million tons, exceeding the previous record result by more than 1.6 million tons.
Earlier this month, First Deputy Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Gadzhimagomed Guseynov said that the volume of cargo traffic along the Northern Sea Route should exceed 40 million tons in 2025.
Talking to the Rossiya-24 TV channel, Chekunkov noted that today the main challenge is the creation of the icebreakers fleet.
"This [year] will not be so simple, <...> which is, of course, associated with the geopolitical situation, and with the unprecedented pressure that was made on Russia. And today the main challenge for us is the creation of the ice class fleet, namely those unique vessels on which our cargo will be exported. As it is envisaged by the federal project, by 2030, the freight traffic via the Northern Sea Route must amount to 109 billion tons. We consider different scenarios. There is probably a "fork", it starts somewhere from 70 million tons, ends with more than 100 million tons," the minister said.
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route and the main sea line in the Russian Arctic sector. It stretches along northern coasts of Russia across the seas of the Arctic Ocean (Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering seas). The route consolidates 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 the Providence Bay.