SEOUL - Chaos in the Middle East is adding incentive and urgency for some trading nations to navigate both ice floes and geopolitical competition at the top of the world. The first South Korean container ship to reach Europe via the Arctic arrived in Felixstowe, England over the weekend, a day after Houthi rebels seized control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, putting pressure on yet another global trade chokepoint. Asian nations, especially China and South Korea, both of which depend heavily on maritime trade routes, including the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea, began pilot voyages more than a decade ago to find routes to Europe and the Middle East which were faster and less vulnerable to chokepoints.
The ongoing U.S. war on Iran has added impetus to those efforts. India says it is planning its first cargo ship voyage via the Northern Sea Route (NSR), an east-west shipping corridor along Russia's Arctic coastline, next year. Japan's Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology is building its first Arctic research icebreaker and preparing to send it to explore polar waters as early as next year.
The contest distantly echoes early modern history, such as 15th-16th century Europe, when Spain and Portugal and later England and the Netherlands vied for control of sea lanes, ports and access to resources to gain the upper hand against rival states. In a social media post, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung congratulated the captain and crew of the Panstar Acro ship for opening a historic route. The ship took advantage of late summer temperatures when ice is scarcest to make the 45-day round trip voyage, starting in Busan, via the NSR, and stopping in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and Gdansk, Poland.
Due to global warming in Arctic waters, "we're seeing the surface area covered by the ice in September, much lower than it used to be. We're losing an average of about 10 to 15% per decade," says Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO. With pack ice covering most of its waters, Meier adds, much of the Arctic was previously unnavigable without icebreakers — ships with reinforced bows to cut through ice.
But now, "we are seeing a lot more people going up there and it's small sailboats and cruise ships as well as commercial vehicles. So it's becoming a busier place." But it's no trade superhighway yet. Insurance costs for Arctic shipping are high, and the window of opportunity when ice is at its minimum is short, from late summer to early fall.
"I think what's significant," says geographic studies professor Frédéric Lassere at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, "is that for the first time, there are shipping companies that are trying to implement regular container services across the Arctic," and betting that it could eventually be profitable. For now, Lassere says, most shipping companies are reacting to Middle East risks by taking the longer but more predictable route around southern Africa. Meanwhile, geopolitics and Russia's war with Ukraine have constrained South Korea's Arctic ambitions.
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