Dubai-based terminal operator DP World has anounced it will work with Russian state nuclear energy firm Rosatom to develop pilot container shipping routes between Northwest Europe and East Asia through the Arctic.

Rosatom is a designated sole infrastructure operator of the Northern Sea Route which it plans to develop into a fully-fledged transport corridor.

“The Northern Transit Corridor holds out the prospect of shorter transit times between East and West,” Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, group chairman and CEO of DP World, commented.

Russia is determined to get far more traffic transiting its chilly northern shores. It has been a long held, strategic goal of president Vladimir Putin to take the Northern Sea Route mainstream. Financial incentives may soon be on hand to make this a reality.

“Transportation of goods along the Northern Sea Route should not be more expensive, but in the long term cheaper than along the Suez Canal”, deputy prime minister Yury Trutnev told reporters last month.

Trutnev has asked the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, the Ministry of Transport and Rosatom to conduct an economic analysis together to work out how to make the alternate Asia-Europe waterway more competitive with the Suez.