The future arrives early for Northwest Passage
Danish bulk carrier shows shortcut to Europe is viable
I think there are some Canadian companies that got scooped. I believe they only woke up to this development.
JOHN JOHN HIGGINBOTHAM HIGGINBOTHAM
PROFESSOR, PROFESSOR, CARLETON CARLETON UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY
The company that made the first commercial transit of the Northwest Passage plans to increase its shipments through the legendary waterway next year, suggesting such traffic is coming sooner than anyone anticipated.
“We hope and expect to do it,” said Christian Bonfils of Nordic Bulk Carriers, the Danish shipper that owns the Nordic Orion.
The vessel made history last September when it hauled 15,000 tonnes of coal to Finland from Vancouver through waters once impenetrable ice. It took four days less than it would have taken to traverse the Panama Canal, and greater depths allowed the Orion to carry 25 per cent more coal.
Sailing through the passage saved the company about $ 200,000 and resulted in a nicely profitable voyage.
The company is talking with the Canadian government about ramping up those shipments, Bonfils said. The number is under discussion.
“It’s a bit too early to say,” Bonfils said from Copenhagen. “We need to slowly explore what is actually possible to do here.”
A federal spokesman confirmed the company has broached its plans for multiple transits with the government, including possible icebreaker assistance.
“Nordic Bulk Carriers representatives have met with Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada representatives to discuss anticipated transits in 2014 through the Northwest Passage,” said Kevin Hill of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, responsible for the Coast Guard.
That means an era that many experts relegated to the future is already here, said Rob Huebert, an Arctic policy expert at the University of Calgary.
He suggested previous surveys reporting almost no interest in the Northwest Passage were simply the result of shippers holding their cards close to their vests.
“When you look at the number of ice- strengthened vessels that came out of the woodwork for ( Russia’s) Northern Sea Route, it’s obvious that some companies have been quickly building up capacity.”
In Russia, 421 vessels applied for permission to use that country’s northern passage last season.
Now that Nordic Bulk Carriers has shown it’s possible other shippers are likely to follow suit, said John Higginbotham, a professor at Ottawa’s Carleton University and former assistant deputy minister of transport. “I think there’s some Canadian companies that got scooped. I believe they only woke up to this development.”
He said the ice in the Passage varies in extent from year to year, but the old, tough, multi- year ice that once blocked the route is largely gone.
Since 1903, Coast Guard records show only four tankers have made full transits of the Northwest Passage, including one each in 2011 and 2012. No cargo ship has made the voyage and the Nordic Orion is the only bulk carrier to have done so.
The Northwest Passage lacks adequate nautical charts, ports, searchandrescue stations and icebreakers available to commercial ships. Unlike Russia, Canada has not made upgrading those facilities a priority.
Bonfils said his company is convinced there’s money to be made in sending goods through a waterway that once bedevilled generations of mariners.
“It’s a good addition to what we do because we have the ships already,” he said. “We don’t expect a boom in ice- class bulk carriers being built because all of a sudden you can sail the Northwest Passage. This is more of an addition ( instead of) a standalone business.”
Expect more shippers to reach the same conclusion, Higginbotham said.
“Where there’s cargo to make money, ships will go,” he said.