Feasibility of a Sea Route through the Canadian Arctic

Abstract

One predicted consequence of global warming is the thinning of Arctic sea ice. This raises the question whether the fabled Northwest Passage can be used for year round ship traffic, and whether the distance saved by using the polar route justifies the incremental investment in ice-breaking ships. A conceptual study using computer simulation was conducted to evaluate the Northwest Passage versus the Panama Canal routes between eastern North America and Japan. Recent historical ice conditions were modelled stochastically to calculate ship transit time. The economic performance was then evaluated by estimating the port-to-port shipping cost component of the overall required freight rate, again using stochastic modelling for a variety of cost factors. The most critical economic variable is the incremental capital cost between an ice capable and a standard Panamax ship. Shipping from St John's Newfoundland to Yokohama is economic through the Northwest Passage even with an incremental capital cost of 80%. Extending the route to New York would make the Northwest Passage non-competitive. We report the sensitivity of the port-to-port shipping cost for a number of economic factors, with capital and fuel cost being the most significant. Maritime Economics & Logistics (2007) 9, 324–334. doi:10.1057/palgrave.mel.9100185

Arctic shipping: A systematic literature review of comparative studies

“…Five of the studies referring to the NWP did not include any ice breaking fees (Somanathan et al, 2007;2009;Lasserre, 2014;2015;Lu et al, 2014). Five studies referring to the NSR assumed discounted fees which are in accordance with some references from shipping operators: they range from 3 US$/tonne (ballast) to 6.8 US$/tonne (laden) (Raza and Schøyen, 2014), 5 US$/GT (Furuichi and Otsuka, 2014; and 8.2 US$/tonne (Lasserre, 2015).…”

Logistics and Supply Chain Management Applications Within a Global Context: An Overview

“…Other countries or regions investigated included the Arctic (Somanathan, Flynn, and Szymanski 2007), Argentina (Carranza, Maltz, and Antun 2002), Austria (Madlener and Bachhiesl 2007), Barbados (Ramcharan and Dey 2005), Botswana (Msimangira 2003), Bulgaria (Dimitrov 2005), Chile (Singer and Donoso 2007), Cuba (Van Bodegraven, 2001), Denmark (Christiansen, Rohde, and Hald. 2003), Dubai (Jacobs and Hall 2007), Estonia (Elenurm 2007), Finland (Kaynak and Eronen 2003), France (Guffond and Leconte 2000), Ghana and Guatemala (Bossert, Bowser, and Amenyah 2007), Greece (Kotsifaki et al 2007), Hungary (Demeter, Gelei, and Jenei 2006), Ireland (Huber and Sweeney 2007), Kazakhstan (Price 2006 (Bhutta, Rana, and Asad 2007), Panama (Vasquez 2003), Portugal (Barros 2003), Russia (Toppinen et al 2007), Saudi Arabia (Falah, Zairi, and Ahmed 2003), Sudan (Beamon and Kotleba 2006), Sweden (Olhager and Selldin 2004), Thailand (Boon-itt and Paul 2006), Trinidad and Tobago (Chowdary 2005), the United Arab Emirates , and Uganda (Kimbowa 2000).…”

The potential economic viability of using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as an alternative route between Asia and Europe

“…A conceptual study using computer simulation was conducted by Somanathan et al (2009) to evaluate the Northwest Passage versus the Panama Canal routes between eastern North America and Japan (Somanathan et al, 2007). The same authors made a follow-up study of shipping through the Northwest Passage vs. the Panama Canal route which indicates that average ship transit time through ice shows little seasonal variation and more round trips per year can be completed for both St. Johns, Newfoundland to Yokohama route and New York to Yokohama route.…”