Northern Sea Route's annual cargo for 2020 could exceed 30 million tons
© RIA Novosti. Vera Kostamo

Northern Sea Route's annual cargo for 2020 could exceed 30 million tons

Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev reported to President of Russia Vladimir Putin that last year the volume of cargo on the Northern Sea Route was 5.5 million tons and this year it could exceed 30 million tons.

Likhachev also said that Rosatom was actively moving toward year-round use of the Northern Sea Route. "In the eastern direction, this year we worked together with NOVATEK and Sovcomflot to convoy two LNG tankers, Vladimir Voronin and Christophe de Margerie, very early in the season, in May, when the ice is still very thick, and we did this at a commercial speed of nearly 12 knots an hour," Likhachev said and thanked his colleagues for organising this effort.

He also added the performance tests of the first universal nuclear icebreaker Arktika would begin in the last ten days of June, so that the icebreaker would be handed over to Atomflot in September or October, at the latest.

Rosatom also plans to convert four chemical weapons elimination plants into powerful ecology and technology parks by 2023 and to launch three new plants in Russia. "At the same time, we are establishing an integrated system for recycling waste in the first and second industrial-safety categories. This waste includes the most harmful substances that can irreparably damage nature. We have the technology to recycle them to the greatest possible extent without burying them. But we need a system for monitoring and recording their circulation. We have reached complete consensus with the Government, and we are working on schedule," Alexei Likhachev noted.