A recent survey is pouring cold water on the prospect of international shipping traffic steaming through Canada's Northwest Passage despite visions that melting sea ice and longer periods of open water will turn the fabled waterway into a busy cargo route,reports Canadian Press.
"These companies are really, really not interested in Arctic routes," Frederic Lasserre of Quebec's Laval University told CP. "It's never going to be a Panama Canal."
When Arctic sea ice dropped to record low levels in 2007, observers began to suggest that the Northwest Passage could offer a money-saving alternative to southern routes. The passage, many pointed out, could trim nearly 10,000 kilometres off common trips such as London-Yokohama or Rotterdam-Singapore.
Foreign policy experts in Canada and the United States were predicting commercial shipping was a matter of when, not if.
So Lasserre decided to ask the ones who send out the ships what they thought of the passage. In data that has since been circulated by organizations from the Arctic Council to NATO, he found the answer is: not much.
Lasserre contacted 125 shipping firms from Asia, Europe and North America and got responses from 34 companies representing 62 per cent of the market in 2008. Only 11 of them expressed any interest at all in shipping through the Northwest Passage.
When Arctic sea ice dropped to record low levels in 2007, observers began to suggest that the Northwest Passage could offer a money-saving alternative to southern routes. The passage, many pointed out, could trim nearly 10,000 kilometres off common trips such as London-Yokohama or Rotterdam-Singapore.
Foreign policy experts in Canada and the United States were predicting commercial shipping was a matter of when, not if.
So Lasserre decided to ask the ones who send out the ships what they thought of the passage. In data that has since been circulated by organizations from the Arctic Council to NATO, he found the answer is: not much.
Lasserre contacted 125 shipping firms from Asia, Europe and North America and got responses from 34 companies representing 62 per cent of the market in 2008. Only 11 of them expressed any interest at all in shipping through the Northwest Passage.
Most of the interested firms were in North America. And most of those were already present in the North through efforts such as the annual sea lift of bulk supplies to northern communities.
Lasserre got similar results from a second, more extensive survey last summer. That survey suggested that resistance to the passage was strongest among companies focused on container shipping — the largest part of the market, but one that relies on dependable, accurate delivery times.
Only six out of 46 container shippers would even consider an Arctic route, the results suggested.
Sea ice will continue to be too much of a complicating factor for some time to come, Lasserre said. Freeze-up and break-up is unpredictable. Even small bergs — called growlers — can slow down a cargo ship, ice-strengthened or not.
"What the companies are selling is not merely transportation, it's also schedules," Lasserre said."There's no interest in the shipping to incur delays or to have to pay the penalties that they would have to suffer. It costs them money."
As well, ice-strengthened cargo ships are more expensive to build and are less fuel-efficient. Insuring ships through an Arctic route is also costly. It all eats away at any savings realized from a shorter voyage.
Lasserre said some shipping is likely to increase, such as that serving Arctic communities or resource sites such as mines.
Lasserre got similar results from a second, more extensive survey last summer. That survey suggested that resistance to the passage was strongest among companies focused on container shipping — the largest part of the market, but one that relies on dependable, accurate delivery times.
Only six out of 46 container shippers would even consider an Arctic route, the results suggested.
Sea ice will continue to be too much of a complicating factor for some time to come, Lasserre said. Freeze-up and break-up is unpredictable. Even small bergs — called growlers — can slow down a cargo ship, ice-strengthened or not.
"What the companies are selling is not merely transportation, it's also schedules," Lasserre said."There's no interest in the shipping to incur delays or to have to pay the penalties that they would have to suffer. It costs them money."
As well, ice-strengthened cargo ships are more expensive to build and are less fuel-efficient. Insuring ships through an Arctic route is also costly. It all eats away at any savings realized from a shorter voyage.
Lasserre said some shipping is likely to increase, such as that serving Arctic communities or resource sites such as mines.
