Race to the Finnish as ships opt for the ‘polar silk road’ shortcut

FINLAND is cashing in on a global boom in demand for icebreakers, driven by growing maritime traffic through Arctic regions previously considered unnavigable due to thick ice and extreme conditions.

The new frontier of the “polar silk road” linking China and the Far East with Europe is pushing up demand for vessels and equipment able to cope with the extreme conditions, Finnish maritime experts told The Sunday Telegraph.

Retreating Arctic ice caused by a warming climate is permitting more vessels to use the shorter northern sea route to Beijing.

A total of 1,908 vessels made the voyage via the northern sea route during 2017, up 12 per cent from 2016, according to figures from Nord University in Norway. About 69 per cent of the trips in 2017 were made during the summer months when there is less ice.

But growing numbers of vessels are making the journey during the freezing winters too. While 494 vessels made the trip during the icebound months between January and June in 2016, the figure rose to 596 in 2017.

Eero Hokkanen, director of communications for Arctia, a state-owned company which operates Finland’s ice breaking fleet, said: “Finland is a superpower of ice breaking.”

Speaking from the bridge of the new Polaris, the world’s first icebreaker to be powered by liquefied natural gas, he added: “This is the only country in the world where all of our seaports can be frozen in. So we need to keep them open.”

About two thirds of icebreakers globally have been designed or built in part or fully in Finland, including many of Russia’s fleet of 55.