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Putin routes thin-hulled oil tankers through the N Sea Route, risking disastrous oil spills. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-18
Stung by Western sanctions that punish Putin for his war crimes against Ukraine, The first time that the Russian government approved using “unreinforced oil tankers” to sail through the country's Northern Sea Route, an extreme and dangerous journey.
The use of the vulnerable ships is to find a go around the hard-hit sanctions have had on their oil trade with Asia, according to reporting by the Financial Times. Warnings have been sent to Moscow that they risk a tanker rupture with ships that are not “ice class” vessels along Russia’s 3.500-mile-long northern coast.
Ice floes, currents, and winds can surround the vessel and crush it. Increasing Arctic Ocean wave heights pose a danger as well. Two of the vessels sailed to China in early September.
North Korea's Rajin Port offers strategic access to the Northern Sea Route. Connecting it to Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway could transform Rajin into a major Eurasian logistics hub. h/t twitter
David Shepperd, Cris Cook, and Anastasia Stognei write:
The thin-hulled vessels sailed for China in early September, navigating one of the most dangerous ice passages on the planet for the first time, far from any capabilities to respond to oil spills. “Sea ice is unpredictable and routes are very hard to maintain,” said Charlie Kronick at Greenpeace UK. “Using non-ice-class tankers makes the already high likelihood of an accident that much worse.” Moscow has in recent years hailed the Northern Sea Route, which lies entirely within the Arctic waters, as offering a shorter shipping route to China. A warming climate has opened up the route in summer months, which is far quicker than sailing the normal way via the Suez Canal.
FT further reports that multiple ice-class ships became stuck in the Siberian Sea and needed to be rescued by icebreakers. Malte Humpert, a High North News reported quoted in the FT article:
“I think it’s a clear sign that for Russia, selling its energy at any cost trumps the environment. The nexus of climate change and geopolitics has created this situation. Russia is desperate to get its oil to market.”
Meanwhile, outside of Russia, the Banks are investing trillions of dollars in fossil fuel expansion in the Global South.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/18/2193967/-Putin-routes-thin-hulled-oil-tankers-through-the-N-Sea-Route-risking-catastrophic-oil-spills
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