Danish Cargo Ship Navigates Northwest Passage
A large Danish cargo ship navigated the Northwest Passage for the first time. The Arctic route is hazardous, but the voyage shows the potential for cutting down on global shipping times and costs.
The famed passage was sought for centuries by navigators as a possible trade route. It was first navigated in 1903-1906 by Ronald Amundsen. However, the Arctic ice pack kept regular shipping from being possible most of the year until 2009.
However, global warming is changing that. Reuters reports that the 75,000 deadweight-ton Nordic Orion freighter became the first of its kind to navigate the route successfully.
The Nordic Orion left the Canadian pacific port of Vancouver on September 17 and will arrive in the Finnish port of Pori on October 7. It is carrying coking coal from Canadian miner Teck Resources to Finnish steel producer Ruuki Metals.
Interest in using the Northwest Passage for cargo shipping is on the rise, notes ABC News. Thanks to climate change, waters once impenetrable by thick layers of ice can be easily traversed by commercial vessels. While the reality of melting ice in the region is unsettling, the change has opened a new frontier for shipping routes.
The first commercial ship to navigate the Northwest Passage was the oil tanker SS Manhattan in 1969. However, the journey was made difficult by ice and deterred others from giving it a try.
Ed Coll, CEO of Bulk Operations, which owns the Nordic Orion, announced that the ship only met one choke point at Peel Sound in Nunavut, and didn’t have issues going through the west coast of Greenland, an area Coll called the most dangerous. The 738-foot freighter was able to trim about 1,000 nautical miles off its journey by taking the Northwest Passage instead of the traditional route through the Panama Canal.
The Nordic Orion was also able to carry 25 percent more coal than normal, thanks to the difference between the passage’s deep waters versus the canal’s shallow ones. The benefits saved Bulk Partners almost $200,000. With one ship navigating the Northwest Passage successfully, there is a chance that others will attempt the same.
