“The total traffic on the Northern Sea Route was 34.85 mln. tons in 2021”, announced Maxim Kulinko, Deputy Director, Northern Sea Route Directorate, Rosatom. It exceeds the 2020 traffic of 32.97 mln. tons by almost 2 mln. tons.
The Northern Sea Route Administration, an affiliate of the Federal Agency of Maritime and River Transport, Russian Ministry of Transport, confirmed the figures.
In 2016, it was 7.47 mln. tons and back then for the first time the Northern Sea Route (NSR) traffic exceeded the USSR figures: in 1987, the traffic reached 6.57 mln. tons. The NSR traffic almost doubled since 2018 when Rosatom had become the NSR infrastructure operator and had been appointed responsible for the Northern Sea Route Development federal project.
The federal project specifies that the goal for the end of 2021 is 32 mln. tons.
For reference:
The goal of the NSR Development federal project is creating the infrastructure to increase the cargo traffic to 80 mln. tons in 2024 and 110 mln. tons by 2030, and to increase the total capacity of the seaports to 110 and 115 mln. tons, respectively. It is a part of the Comprehensive Mainline Infrastructure Improvement Initiative 2024 introduced under the "National Goals And Development Strategies Till 2024" Presidential Decree No. 204 dated May 7, 2018.