Russia launches Arctic oil transport project as alternative to Suez Canal

President Vladimir Putin has launched an ambitious Russian energy project designed to move large volumes of oil along the Arctic route, which Moscow presents as an alternative to the Suez Canal.

Vostok Oil will carry crude through a pipeline stretching several hundred kilometres from the Siberian Payak and Vankorsk fields to the Arctic port of Bukh­ta Sever in the Krasnoyarsk region. Putin authorized the pumping of crude into a tanker and said the vessel would break through the ice on its way toward either the Asia-Pacific region or Europe.

Putin told Igor Sechin, president of Russia's largest oil company Rosneft, by video conference that the terminal can currently handle 30 million tonnes of oil annually. He said Bukh­ta Sever would become the world's largest northern port and highlighted the freezing conditions in which workers had built the project.

“

In this way, Bukh­ta Sever will become the world's largest northern port.

The Vostok Oil reserves are estimated at 7 billion tonnes of oil, which Putin described as making the fields among the largest deposits on the planet. He called the project a major event for Russia's economy and placed it within development plans for northern Siberia, the Arctic and the Russian Far East.

At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this week, Putin ordered officials to make the Arctic route navigable throughout all 12 months of the year by 2036.

“

I insist, it is a major event for the country's economy as a whole.