Relevant for prelims and GS paper 3 (IR) :-
NEW DELHI: With the ceremonial launch of the nuclear-powered arctic icebreaker ‘Ural’ last weekend, Russia’s Rosatom Atomic Energy Corporation has completed another step towards ensuring all-year round navigability of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The development opens up an opportunity for India to access resource rich Arctic via NSR through the year.
During President Vladimir Putin’s visit here last October Russia that holds significant part of resource-rich Arctic region offered India access to the NSR that connects Europe with the Pacific Rim including additional supplies of natural gas and joint development of gas fields to meet Delhi’s growing energy demands.
The 173 metre-long ‘Ural’ is equipped with two highly efficient and compact RITM-200 nuclear reactors on board, capable of generating up to 350MW combined, allowing the ship to break through ice as thick as three meters. The cutting edge RITM-200 type reactor makes its world debut on the ‘Ural’ as well as on its sister vessels from the 22220 project, the ‘Arktik’ and the ‘Sibir’, before Rosatom deploys it in floating nuclear power plants.
Another unique feature of the project 22220 vessels including the ‘Ural’ is its dual-draught design. Ballast tanks inside its hull can be adjusted easily to alter the ship’s draught depending on whether the vessel needs to navigate the Arctic sea or shallow river estuaries. With this smart design solution, Rosatom is essentially getting two types of ice breakers for the price of one, representing a potential cost saving of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Rosatom Director General, Alexey Likhachev, said: “The ‘Ural’ together with its sisters are central to our strategic project of opening the NSR to all-year activity. Our goal for 2024 is for more than 80million metric tons of shipments to pass through the NSR. We also plan to add two more project 22220 ships to our nuclear icebreaker fleet by 2027. The contract for construction of these icebreakers is expected to be signed by the end of this August”.
The 80 million metric ton target would consist mainly of: natural gas (47 million tons), coal (23 million tons), oil (5 million tons), heavy industrial goods such as machinery (5 million tons) and 1 million tons of metals.
The Russian government has given Rosatom, technical consultants and main equipment suppliers for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in India the lead in the development of the Northern Sea Route infrastructure.
There was concrete reference to Indo-Russian partnership in the Arctic region in the joint statement issued after the annual summit last October. “The two governments also expressed support to companies from both sides “for development of cooperation and exploring opportunities for joint development” of oil fields in Russian territory, including on the Arctic shelf, and projects on the shelf of the Pechora and Okhotsk Seas.”
The Arctic contains a wealth of petroleum and mineral resources. Currently, the region produces about one tenth of the world’s oil and a quarter of its natural gas. The Russian Arctic is the source for about 80 percent of this oil and virtually all of the natural gas. The most developed sector of the region, the Russian Arctic also holds abundant deposits of nickel, copper, coal, gold, uranium, tungsten, and diamonds.
The Northern Sea Route – is the main sea route in the Russian Arctic. The Russian ministry of transport forecasts cargo turnover along the Northern Sea Route by 2020 will grow tenfold to 65 million tonnes a year. The Route crosses seas of the Arctic Ocean (Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukotka) and partially the Pacific Ocean (the Bering Sea). The Northern Sea Route from the Kara Gate to the Providence Bay is about 5,600km long. The distance between St. Petersburg to Vladivostok along the the Northern Sea Route is more than 14,000 km, while the distance vessels have to cover by the Suez Canal is more than 23,000 km.