OREANDA-NEWSThe volume of cargo that will be transported by the nuclear icebreaker fleet in 2019 along the Northern Sea Route will be 29 million tons compared to 20 million tons last year. This was announced by Deputy Director General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, head of the Northern Sea Route Directorate Vyacheslav Ruksha in an interview with the official journal of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).

“In 2018, we reached the figure of 20 million tons. This year, 29 million tons will be transported”, he said. Thus, in 2019, 45% more cargo will be transported than a year earlier. According to Ruksha, over the past five to seven years, two major projects have been implemented. "The first is Gazprom's Arctic Gate. They ship up to 8 million tons a year. Plus, the Yamal LNG project has been launched. More than 10 million tons of liquefied gas have already been taken out of Sabetta’s port", he said.

The Deputy General Director of Rosatom recalled that the state corporation is faced with the task of increasing freight traffic along the Northern Sea Route to 80 million tons by 2024. This will be achieved through the implementation of Arctic LNG-2 natural gas production and liquefaction projects, the development of the Payakhskoye hydrocarbon field, and the Vostokugol company coal production project in Taimyr.

The cost of the development program of the Northern Sea Route until 2024 is estimated at 734.9 billion rubles, of which only 274 billion rubles are budgetary funds, the rest are investments by Rosatom and subsoil users. According to the KPMG experts, the contribution of the Northern Sea Route to Russia's GDP by 2050 will be up to 2% per year, and the budget gain from tax revenues and an increase in dividends will reach 4.4 trillion rubles, as noted in the WEF official journal.