How Putin wants to control the North Pole Dealer wants to sell drugs to the city police officers of Zurich

The Kremlin has a foot in the door in many places: the Russian president is quietly involved in numerous African countries, in Central Asia and in the former Soviet republics. Now the Kremlin also wants to defend its position in the Arctic. Because there, with new shipping routes, there is also a new conflict potential.

A multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Russia will now create facts there: On Thursday, Putin opened the first part of the major liquefied natural gas project Arctic LNG 2 in the Murmansk region. It is the second LNG project in the region and is located on the Gydan peninsula, only about 30 kilometers away from a first gigantic LNG plant. It is located on the Yamal Peninsula and was commissioned in 2017.

During the televised opening ceremony, a member of the operating company asked for Putin’s “permission to begin sea transport operations”. The Kremlin boss then simply replied “Permission granted” and pulled a lever. The ceremony was also attended by the chairman of the natural gas group Nowatek, Leonid Michelson.

The project, which will transport gas from Russia in the form of liquefied petroleum gas in tankers across Arctic waters, is estimated to cost $21 billion. With three production plants, a production capacity of 19.8 million tons of liquefied gas per year is planned.

The French energy group Total was involved in the Arctic LNG 2 project until 2022, but Total withdrew after the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine. The Russian company Nowatek now owns 60 percent of the project and other partner companies come from China and Japan.

The new project is only possible for one reason: the sea ice, which previously covered large parts of the Arctic Ocean, is melting at lightning speed. According to the conservation organization WWF, the ice surface is losing 13 percent per decade due to global warming. Arctic glaciers are also losing ice rapidly.

This has created new seasonal shipping routes. Where it used to be virtually impossible to get through, it is now possible to navigate the Northeast Passage at least in summer. This has also opened up more opportunities for extracting natural resources in the Arctic regions. Several countries, including Russia, are now vying for military and commercial control over the area.

Russia has dominated this battle for two decades and has expanded its fleet of nuclear-capable icebreakers, ships and submarines, according to the US magazine Politico. New mining and oil drilling facilities are said to have been built along Russia’s roughly 15,000-mile Arctic coast. In addition, there are now increasing attempts to get the new sea route under control.

Arctic LNG 2 is one of Putin’s main plans to create a northern shipping route between Asia and Europe. Moscow hopes that in time the route through the Northeast Passage will rival the Suez Canal as a transportation route for oil and gas.

In the future it could be possible to ship from Shanghai to Hamburg in 15 days via this route. Ships through the Suez Canal from Shanghai to Hamburg currently take 25 days. With a faster transport route, Russia could offer liquefied gas cheaper in China.

Used sources:

Other interesting articles:

()