Cracks in the ice

Last month, sea-ice cover in the Arctic extended to just 5.95 million square kilometres — 1.68 million square kilometres less than the average between 1979 and 2000. While native fauna such as polar bears are threatened by dwindling summer sea ice, commercial opportunities are opening up in this newly accessible summer sea and are being pursued apace. The first commercial supertanker succeeded in traversing the so-called northeast route through the Arctic from Russia to China. The vessel Baltica carried 70,000 tonnes of gas from Murmansk in Russia to Ningbo in China without having to use the traditional route via the Suez Canal. Called the northeast passage by the British, when they saw themselves at the centre of the world, it has seen many ships frozen and crews perish in the severe conditions. One of the first to explore the route was Sir Hugh Willoughby in 1553, an explorer sponsored by the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands. But the ship got stuck in ice and the crew froze to death. William Barents, a Dutch adventurer, tried some years later but had his ship crushed by ice and died in 1597. But he was commemorated by the naming of the Barents Sea. More recently, Russian traders have explored and mapped the route and have managed small-scale trade in fuel and other goods since the 1930s. But the collapse of the Soviet Union brought an end to such efforts and international shippers were sceptical about the route. Last autumn, however, two German vessels became the first European cargo ships to navigate the route with 3,500 tonnes of building materials. But the latest achievement is a giant tanker, which managed to pass through the route in just 11 days — half the time it would have taken via the Suez Canal. The journey was 13,000 kilometres compared with 22,000 kilometres by the traditional route. " Never before has a ship of this size passed via the northeast passage, " the ship's captain, Alexander Nikiforov, said in an interview with Russian television. It is estimated that the use of this route could be four-times cheaper in The summer melt in Arctic ice is attracting increasing commercial interest in exploiting this once pristine region. Nigel Williams reports. Retreat: Summer Arctic sea ice is reducing substantially from amounts seen just a quarter of a century ago. (Photo: Alamy.)