Heavy Ice Strengthening Required for Arctic Operation

Tuesday, Jun 23, 2009

The heavy ice strengthening of hulls, upgrading of equipment and components, and requirements to minimize emissions and improve icebreaking capabilities must be implemented in order to establish regular year-round trans-Arctic containership operations.

DNV has carried out a feasibility study to evaluate the possible advantages of utilizing the shorter trans-Arctic route between Asia and Europe and benchmarked it against the traditional Suez route. Climate change, which is causing summer ice to lessen and possibly not occur in the future, has initiated the new focus on the alternative route.

The DNV feasibility study concludes that no year-round regular container shipping trades crossing the Arctic area are foreseen within the coming decades, even although the trans-Arctic route will significantly reduce the sailing distance between some of the world’s major markets.

Morten Mejlænder-Larsen, DNV’s programme director for Arctic shipping, says: “Future ice conditions in the Arctic until 2050 have been estimated by using the same climate models as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The predictions show a continuous decrease in ice extent, concentration and thickness. However, even in 2050, the ice conditions will remain heavy during winter and spring.”

Mr Mejlænder-Larsen explains further: “If container vessels are to be strengthened and upgraded to meet these challenges, the disadvantage of a hull optimized for icebreaking is that its efficiency is significantly reduced in open water. Transit in open water will be a main part of the shorter route, and this will lessen the gains achieved by taking this route.”

Container operations today are based on delivery ‘just in time’, which is difficult to achieve in changing ice conditions. A focus on fuel consumption and new more flexible ways of operating container vessels may change this in the future. An extended focus on temporary trading during the summer months is also expected.

The additional cost for a high ice class and upgraded equipment and components, together with reduced regularity, makes regular trans-Arctic container operations less favourable than the traditional route through the Suez Canal.

Future reductions in ice extent will lessen the difference, and the most favourable routes will start to be more economically attractive within a couple of decades.

Source: DNV