Chinese Line Launches New Arctic Container Service to Arkhangelsk
China NewNew Shipping, the operator of the "Ice Silk Road" Arctic route from Shanghai to St. Petersburg, has launched a new line connecting Chinese ports with the Russian port of Arkhangelsk. The new destination on the White Sea removes the need for NewNew's vessels to transit around Scandinavia, shortening up the China-Russia Arctic sea link by another 1,400 nautical miles.
The line expands on previous efforts to boost Chinese shipping in the Russian Arctic. Last year, NewNew Shipping carried out 14 round-trip voyages from China to Russia, circumventing perennial rail system congestion in the Russian Far East and the long conventional voyage through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
Last month, Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom - the agency responsible for developing shipping and trade in the Russian far north - announced that it will form a joint venture with NewNew Shipping to develop a year-round container service on the Northern Sea Route. Together, the partners will build five ice-classed containerships to carry out three to four voyages a year each. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed a premium on developing year-round navigability on the NSR, leveraging global warming and thinning ice cover, but the eastern stretch remains a seasonally-limited route for now.)
The new service to Akhangelsk improves on the value proposition of NewNew's original St. Petersburg service. Compared to the security-challenged Red Sea-Suez-Med route, the new "Arctic Express 1" service will be up to 4,000 nautical miles shorter. It will also be a faster connection to Russia's main industrial and population centers: From Arkhangelsk, the cargo will be delivered by rail service to a logistics park in Moscow. It is expected that it will carry about 20,000 TEU over the course of the 2024 season - a fraction of overall bilateral trade, but a rare addition to existing capacity.
In a sign of the service's geopolitical importance, China's ambassador to Russia attended the opening ceremony in Moscow, accompanied by the governor of Arkhangelsk. Chinese trade is more important to Russia than ever, both for civilian and defense purposes. Dual-use Chinese goods like drones, trucks and computer chips are essential to the Russian invasion of Ukraine; this week, for the first time, the NATO alliance called China a "decisive enabler" of Russian aggression on the Ukrainian front - an accusation that Beijing vehemently denies, despite extensive evidence of Chinese equipment on the battlefield.
Arkhangelsk has a long history as a key seaport for Russian defense logistics. During the Second World War, it was one of the two destinations for Allied convoys delivering Lend-Lease aid to Soviet forces, which were fighting German invaders in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. 85 Allied merchant ships were lost on the Arctic Convoy route over the course of 78 missions.