Bolshevik Island going to be turned into one mega gold mining operation with blasting and open pit mining. The only animals around at these temperatures are polar bears.
When we think about the Northern Sea Route we think of Russia's Oil and Gas fields, but there is far more on offer than just those items. The NSR is being sold to the world as a new shipping corridor between East and West yet it is allowing Russia to tap into what natural resources are in that region.
Convoy being rescued last week showing the nuclear ice breaker in red making a path way out of their ice hell.
Coal is a big one having the biggest natural deposits in the world but Gold is also a priority. This is hard core mining though and mining licenses have been going at nearly 3 x the normal market price. One such mine that is about to go operational is forecast to produce 10 000Kg's per year or in dollar value $570 million. The only set back is this is all off grid and the weather conditions are not exactly friendly. Part of the license agreement is that their will be a nuclear power plant supplied by Rosatom which when all factored in sounds cheap if the license is only costing $93 million.
A Polar desert is what many describe this place as this is the remotest of remote with the nearest town being 700km away. The Bolshevik Islands which has been used by the military up to now has been sold on tender split up into many mining grids. The only way these places can exist is if the Northern Sea Route is operational. The trading corridor is a smoke screen to enable Russia to harvest it's natural resources and nothing else. Selling the idea it is navigable all year round will be a hard sell as this year has already proved just that.
Russia needs 5 of these vessels with this new nuclear ice breaker added to the fleet this week totaling 3.
Many of the communities dotted along the Northern Russian coast have to now wait until January for any supplies as they are all frozen in. Russia doesn't have their fleet of Nuclear ice breakers which is the biggest problem and what they have are busy freeing ships trapped.
MSC shipping has ruled out using the NSR due to concerns over the environment. Polar bears are expected to be under threat over the next 20 years and what the Russians are doing will raise more concerns.
I do believe that if Russia was going to announce that they were industrializing the Arctic region there would be a bigger outcry. Going the route of promoting a sea route due to the ice melting is a clever ploy as this year alone has shown clearly that is not the case.
There has to be some serious threats imposed on the environment by what is going on as how can it not. Russia is hungry for new income and will stop at nothing as what other choice do they have. The smartest ploy would be to offer the Northern Sea Route free of charge as a service to the world instead of looking to subsidise what they are in an around about way trying to benefit.