Japan’s largest shipping line, Mitsui OSK Lines, is taking further steps to be among the leading pioneers using the Northern Sea Route.
MOL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Russia’s Far East Investment and Export Agency to help develop the Northern Sea Route and the Russian Far East.
MOL has been participating in the Yamal LNG Project, which is the world’s first large scale energy project that exports cargoes through the Northern Sea Route, and MOL’s first ice-breaking LNG carrier for the project is slated to go into service at the end of March, following ice trials in Arctic waters. MOL has also been proceeding with a feasibility study aimed at establishing an LNG transhipment terminal and marketing complex in the Kamchatka area with PAO Novatek, the largest independent gas producer in Russia and the main shareholder of the Yamal LNG project.
The minister for the development of the Russian Far East Alexander Galushka commented on the MOU: “One of our key goals is to create a model for development of the Northern Sea Route as a global transit corridor between Europe and Asia. It is undoubted that this work helps to reinforce Russian-Japanese economic relations.”
