Cover Story Breakbulk & Project Cargo
The grounding of the Thamesborg, which was carrying anodes from China to Quebec, highlighted the perils of Arctic sailing.
“ We regret that even with every known technology and safeguard in play, the grounding of Thamesborg occurred,” van der Linde said.
Significant challenges
Unlike blue ocean sailing via the Panama Canal and southern Africa, navigating the Canadian and Russian archipelagos in the Arctic is often done at slow speeds to maneuver through the many inlets and avoid treacherous shoals. There are seven routes through the Northwest Passage, according to the SPRI.
The challenges have led to a cautious approach by other operators.
James Jung, director of CY Shipping, which operates a joint fleet of eight ships with BigLift Shipping, has carried out studies on using the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Route.
The carrier’ s ships are not ice-classed and therefore subject to a limited navigation period for both routes during summer and fall. Jung also identified the high cost of employing ice pilots as a deterrent to using Arctic routes.
“ I don’ t think we will transit via the Northern Sea Route so soon because of the ongoing Ukraine war and sanctions,” he told the Journal of Commerce.
Jung also explained there are very few heavy-lift project cargoes destined for North America’ s high-north,“ so carriers can still make use of the Panama Canal” because the benefits of voyage time and cost of using the Northwest Passage aren’ t there.
Polar sailing, though, is captivating the South Korean government, which recently made the commercialization of Arctic Sea routes one of its priorities in the five-year development blueprint for its maritime sector.
The plan proposes the development of ports and related logistics hubs for Arctic cargo, plus government subsidies for new icebreaking ships.
As part of that effort, the South Korean government organized a briefing at the Korea Shipping Association headquarters in Seoul on Oct. 31 to garner and encourage carrier interest in northern shipping routes, which the government sees as a new growth engine for the economy.
The government is especially focused on developing the Northern Sea Route through the Russian Arctic.
“ Since South Korea conducted a total of five trial operations between 2013 and 2016, national shipping companies’ interest in the Northern Sea Route has been low,” the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said in a statement.“ But national shipping companies have recently expressed a lot of interest in the government’ s policy of developing the Northern Sea Route.”
The ministry expects to organize further meetings to discuss additional trial voyages next year. Heo Man-wook, director of the ministry’ s shipping and logistics bureau, said the Arctic Sea routes have enormous economic potential.
email: keithwallis @ hotmail. com
Nearly 90 vessels have transited the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage in 2025, up from 70 in 2024. Shutterstock. com www. joc. com December 2025 | Journal of Commerce 9