Destination North

Currently, only a third of Arctic ports have rail connections. "With projected increases in shipping volume, we need to develop the access transportation infrastructure," Patrushev, Assistant to Russian President and Chairman of the Maritime Board, explained during an April 18 meeting in Arkhangelsk focused on port infrastructure development for the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor.

Igor Smirnov, Director of Freight Transport and Logistics at the Center for Economic Research, echoes this sentiment: "The Arctic region urgently needs enhanced mainland transportation networks to diversify and secure reliable cargo flows to Northern Sea Route (NSR) ports." He believes that fast-tracking railway construction and upgrades connecting to Arctic ports will diversify the cargo base and help realize ambitious plans to multiply shipping volumes. "With this infrastructure in place, the NSR will become a vital shipping lane. It will facilitate Russian exports originating not just from the Arctic region, but from central Russia, the Urals, and Siberia as well," Smirnov maintains.

According to him, expanding the Northern Sea Route requires building new rail connections. This would open export channels for goods from the Urals and Siberia. The most promising solution appears to be the Ural Meridional Corridor, stretching from Yekaterinburg to the port of Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula. This route would leverage existing sections of the Sverdlovsk and Northern railways, along with the current Obskaya-Bovanenkovo industrial line. To complete this corridor, new railway segments would need to be constructed between Polunochnoye and Obskaya, as well as between Bovanenkovo and Sabetta.

"This approach to developing rail connections to the Northern Sea Route is the most cost-effective option, with the added benefit of placing new infrastructure near major cargo sources," the expert explains.
Several projects are under consideration that would enhance access to Arctic ports. The most significant is the Northern Latitudinal Railway, which would link the western and eastern regions of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and integrate the Northern and Sverdlovsk railway networks into a single logistics system.

Railway projects like "Belkomur" (White Sea-Komi-Urals connection) and "Barentskomur" (the Sosnogorsk-Indiga rail corridor) are also critically important.
Igor Smirnov emphasized that enhancing rail infrastructure to the ports of Arkhangelsk and Murmansk is essential, as these have already become central hubs for Northern Sea Route operations.
During the meeting, Nikolai Patrushev stressed that while building these connecting routes, it's equally vital to develop port facilities along the entire Trans-Arctic corridor. He highlighted that modernizing and expanding key seaports in Russia's Arctic zone must be the first priority.

"To increase cargo flow on the Northern Sea Route, we need to build new ports. Additionally, many existing port facilities are outdated and in need of significant upgrades," explains Alexander Vorotnikov, Expert Council Coordinator at the Project Office for Arctic Development, an Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

Andrey Tarasenko, head of the Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport, outlined several port development projects along the corridor. Interagency task forces have been established to develop multimodal logistics hubs at river ports in Yakutia and the Irkutsk region. The multimodal logistics center in Nizhny Bestyakh village in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), designed to handle 1.7 million tons of cargo, will connect rail and river transport systems and establish logistics routes to the Tiksi seaport.