News / First Arctic liner link with China started by New New Shipping

Icebreaker in St Petersburg © Traderphotos

Yangpu New New Shipping, a newcomer liner operator specialising in Russian routes, has launched the first regular container shipping service between China and the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean.

An ice-class boxship, the 2005-built 1,638 teu Newnew Polar Bear, departed St Petersburg on a 28-day voyage, scheduled to arrive at Shanghai on 4 August after calling at Qingdao and Tianjin.

New New Shipping, based in China’s Hainan Island and part of the Torgmoll logistics group, acquired the ship for $9.3m in June.

Linerlytica said the overall transit time would depend on ice conditions. New New expects to operate three more sailings through the Northern Sea Route during this year’s ‘navigation season’ that runs from July to November.

Linerlytica analyst Tan Hua Joo told The Loadstar: “New New Shipping will be the first regular commercial container service to use the Arctic route, but the company has limited ice-classed ships in its fleet. Previously, there were only irregular experimental voyages by containerships.”

Opportunistic players have taken advantage of the vacuum created by the departure of mainstream operators from Russian ports after the imposition of international sanctions, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Linerlytica noted that Russian ports had seen a jump in container throughput, processing 33% more boxes in Q2 23 than a year ago.

Far East volumes through Vladivostok, Vostochny and Nakhodka grew 39%, at the Black Sea gateway of Novorossiysk they were up by 40% and, although the Baltic gateways of St Petersburg, Ust-Luga and Kaliningrad rebounded by 25% on a year ago, total Baltic volumes remain at less than half their pre-invasion levels, with MSC the only mainline carrier to retain Baltic feeder links to Russia.

The rebound was driven by new Asia to Baltic Russia services providing direct connections from China and India, and transhipment services through UAE, Egypt and Turkey, launched in the past six months by FESCO, Reel Shipping, New New Shipping/Torgmoll, OVP, Safetrans, Mountain Air Shipping, Neco, Modul and Global Field Line.

The strength of these Russian services has helped absorb 200,000 teu of boxship capacity since the end of 2022.