104 Ships on the NSR, but the Arctic Is Still Not a Tradelane

Some 104 ships crossed Russia's Northern Sea Route by 30 September — already more than in all of 2025 — while containerships moved 2.19m teu through Suez in the same month, the highest figure since the Houthi campaign began. Two records in one week, and together they say less about an opening Arctic than about a corridor that grows only when other people's routes close.

The transit number comes from Norway's Centre for High North Logistics on 19 October. The Suez figure landed four days earlier via Lloyd's List Intelligence, with Linerlytica expecting carriers fully back on Suez by Q1 2027. Next summer, with the Red Sea reopening, is the first real test of what Arctic growth is worth.

What happened to Moscow's plan?

Not much of it. Putin set an 80m-tonne NSR cargo target for 2024 back in May 2018; a 2022 plan costed at roughly RUB1.8trn ($29.7bn) added 150m tonnes for 2030. The route carried 37.9m tonnes in 2024 and 37m tonnes in 2025 — its first fall since 2022. Rosatom expects about 40m tonnes this year: half the 2024 target, two years late.

Almost all of it is Russian cargo from Russian ports: Yamal LNG (21.3m tonnes in 2025) and crude from the Ob Gulf and Pechora Sea (7.8m tonnes). Growth was meant to come from Arctic LNG 2 and Rosneft's Vostok Oil. Sanctions crippled the first; the second runs years behind.

Beijing, meanwhile, has cooled. The "Polar Silk Road" did not make it into the outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan approved on 12 March — not a trimmed mention, an absence. Even the 14th plan only promised to "take part in practical Arctic cooperation and build the Ice Silk Road." The route was always implied, never named.

Why is transit booming anyway?

Because forecasts were written for a different world. Officials once projected 1m tonnes of transit cargo in 2024 and 2m tonnes in 2030. CHNL estimates 3.7m tonnes moved in the first nine months of 2026 alone.

Inside that figure: 22 tankers carried roughly 2.1m tonnes of crude east from Murmansk, Primorsk and Ust-Luga. In 2024, 95% of transit cargo ran from Russia to China. This isn't an Asia–Europe shortcut. It's a sanctions-era export lane dodging Baltic inspections, Black Sea drones and the Red Sea.

Do containers matter here?

Barely. CHNL counted four Asia–Europe voyages by 30 September with no Russian port at either end. Sea Legend's China–Europe Arctic Express ran eight sailings on seven ships of 1,500–4,900 teu, the last two leaving China early, on 27 September, ahead of forecast ice. Ningbo Customs puts the volume at 7,761 teu; other reports claim more than 14,000 teu against about 15,700 teu offered. Either way, the whole season moved less than one 24,000 teu ship carries on a single Suez sailing.

The physics haven't moved either. Roughly 12.5 metres of draught in the Sannikov Strait caps boxships near 5,000 teu, and ships without high ice-class get a three-month window in a good year. Every voyage needs a permit from Rosatom's NSR Administration, which also sets route and escort.

What does a slot actually cost?

Priced like a carrier's network team would: a 4,900 teu ship, eight seasonal sailings, west through the Arctic, back via Suez, half-full, at October charter and bunker rates — a slot costs about twice a Suez slot despite the route being 2,200 nautical miles shorter. Per slot per day, a 4,900 teu charter runs nearly three times a 24,000 teu vessel's. Escort adds $150,000–$280,000 per transit, and Chinese sources put Arctic hull and P&I cover at three to five times normal. The carbon case fails too: small, part-loaded ships at 18 knots emit more CO₂ per box than a Suez ULCV.

So shippers paying the premium buy neither speed nor emissions. They buy a corridor the Houthis, Iran and the US Navy cannot close — only Russia can, since it issues the permits and runs the icebreakers.

Who pays the bill?

For now, Moscow, by keeping prices low. Escort tariffs were capped in roubles in 2014, so their dollar value has more than halved; roughly half the icebreaker programme comes from the federal budget. The Far East ministry says escorting one ship now costs about RUB60m, against RUB16m a decade ago. A new tariff order is in draft, and in September the transport ministry proposed a per-tonne levy on Russian exporters to fund two more icebreakers.

The bill is being moved around, not cancelled. Delivery of the 120MW nuclear icebreaker Rossiya — flagship of the year-round promise, rated to break ice up to four metres thick and cut a 50-metre channel — has slipped from 2027 to end-2029. Western carriers won't fill the gap: Atomflot has been under US sanctions since 2023, and MSC, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd have pledged to stay out of the Arctic. Cosco has kept away since 2022, leaving the risk to operators like Sea Legend and NewNew Shipping.

The bull case — retreating ice, patient Beijing, forecasts beaten — amounts to arguing the planners were only wrong about timing. Don't buy it. Transit grew in exactly the years the Red Sea shut, Hormuz was fought over and Russia's westbound exports were blocked. Those are shocks, not trends. Once Asia–North Europe strings are back on weekly Suez rotations with 24,000 teu ships, a Chinese exporter gets a cheaper, year-round, sanctions-free alternative.

Next season answers three questions: whether Sea Legend fills its NSR ships with Suez in use, what Russia's new tariff charges foreign transits, and whether Cosco returns — which would signal Beijing thinks the sanctions risk is worth it. Until then the NSR is not a tradelane. It's an insurance policy Russia writes, Russia underwrites, and China buys only when the other routes are on fire.