South Korea sends first container ship through Arctic route

South Korean container ship will test Arctic route to Europe
Photo: SCMP

Saturday South Korea sends its first trial container through the Arctic, as the Middle East war rattles global shipping, while environmental groups warned the route could accelerate polar ice melt.

The Middle East conflict, sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, has roiled global shipping, sending governments and shipping firms scrambling to seek alternative routes.

Sailing from Busan New Port, the container ship – the "PanStar Acro" – will sail to Europe via the Arctic, testing whether a route opened by melting sea ice can be commercially viable.

The ship will leave for Felixstowe in Britain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Gdansk in Poland before returning, with the voyage expected to take about 45 days, according to the ministry.

The voyage follows that of the Chinese container ship "Dubai Tower", which left the eastern port city of Ningbo for Europe this month, heading north through the Bering Strait before turning west along Russia's Arctic coast.

The usual maritime route between Asia and Europe runs through the Suez Canal, but travelling through the Arctic can cut the journey by around 7,000 kilometres (4,300 miles) and about 10 days, according to the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

South Korea's Vice Oceans Minister Nam Jae-hon said the Arctic route was "bound to become an alternative" to Middle Eastern shipping lanes – as geopolitical risks and technological advances make it increasingly competitive.

Marc Lanteigne, a political science professor at the Arctic University of Norway, said the voyage – coming soon after China's "Dubai Tower" began its own Arctic journey – showed the Northern Sea Route (NSR) was becoming normalised as a "secondary maritime transit corridor".

A successful voyage would demonstrate South Korea's interest in "developing alternative shipping sea lanes", he told AFP, with concerns that it could fall behind as Chinese firms expand regular services through the increasingly viable Arctic route.

Some experts warn South Korean ships using the Arctic route could risk breaching Western sanctions on Russia – currently a key security ally of North Korea – as they would receive Russian navigation and weather services involving payments, albeit small ones.

Vladimir Tikhonov, Korean Studies professor at the University of Oslo, said "strictly speaking, US and EU sanctions are not international law, unlike UN sanctions".

"And with continued uncertainty in the Middle East — itself driven in part by US actions — South Korea may have few alternatives if the Arctic route proves economically viable," he told AFP.

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