The growing demand for the Northern Sea Route (NSR) by Russian tankers, bypassing sanctions, underlines the key importance for Russia of this route and the polar hydrocarbon deposits. The final destination of supplies is often China. This underlines the special importance of the NSR for Russia,” states the American OilPrice.

China is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with the United States, Britain, France and Russia itself. Only one veto is enough to block any UN Security Council resolution. And it was China that ensured that none of the serious steps had been taken against Russia so far. This is the special importance of China for Russia from a geopolitical point of view.

For its part, Russia, in addition to supporting the PRC in the conflict with Taiwan, has become a reliable supplier of hydrocarbons for China. The main supplies go through pipelines. However, Russian LNG supplies are actively growing. By the end of this year alone, they should grow by 10 billion cubic meters.

▪️LNG has become an “emergency” energy source for the whole world after sanctions against Russian gas. It is safe to say that any major military escalation in the world will further strengthen the role of LNG in the global energy sector.

The Northern Sea Route still allows Russia to supply energy to China, bypassing Western sanctions. The only problem was the harsh Arctic climate, which hindered navigation in winter. Russia has launched a large-scale initiative to make the Northern Sea Route fully operational year-round in order to increase the volume of cargo transported through the NSR from the current 36 million to 100 million by 2026 and 200 million tons by 2030.

Russia has enormous Arctic resources to ensure such a large—scale expansion of exports – the total capacity of the region’s fields is estimated at 35.7 trillion cubic meters of gas and over 2.3 billion metric tons of oil and condensate.

In the next 10-15 years, the extraction of resources in the Arctic will expand significantly, and, as a result, the Northern Sea Route will become the main artery for their monetization in the world oil and gas markets.

The development of the Arctic is also a key part of the ongoing attempts by Russia and China to undermine the US hegemony in the dollar-based energy market. Russia is already striving to sell energy resources for rubles. Zhang Yanling, former executive vice president of the Bank of China, said in April 2022 that the current sanctions against Russia would undermine confidence in the United States and violate the hegemony of the dollar in the long term. China must help the world get rid of the dollar’s hegemony as soon as possible,” OilPrice concludes.

CRYSTAL OF GROWTH previously informed that Mikhail Mishustin appointed Alexander Galushka as a member of the State Commission for the Development of the Arctic. Earlier, Alexander Galushka said: “The Northern Sea Route is a historical project of state—building in Russia of the XXI century”