Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 7-2 – Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau – The Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor

That's a bit of a challenge too.

Container ships that are used throughout global maritime shipping enterprise have become so huge.

And that's in an effort to reduce shipping costs.

They're now named things like China Max and Suez Max and Panama Max.

And what that means is these are ships that are just small enough or just big enough to get through those canals in those areas.

Those will not fit in the Arctic.

They may fit someday through the trans-Arctic corridor when sea ice perhaps allows, but through the northern sea route, the max-size container ship, this is the kind of ship that really moves the goods and commerce that Les mentioned, is limited to what's called an Arctic max ship, which is about half the size of a Panama max.

For many years now, as we debated the viability of the North being part of shipping, a lot of myths popped up.

A lot of studies happened, and it's pretty clear.

Obviously, for keel and depth, Arctic Max is about your limit, fully loaded, which was tested a couple years ago through Panama Max, but only half loaded.

Interesting on journeys east and west and west and east.

Got our attention.

China, very clever move for them.

What helped everyone to understand, is this going to work or not, was the fact that China and Southeast Asia Singapore up, Vietnam, South Korea all started significantly studying investing and then going to do tests like Les mentioned.

We now know that this is very serious to China and Southeast Asia.

It's going to happen.

This is all great news for Russia and we can take that information and figure out what it means to us in all the different ways, including the Bering Sea.

That's a bit of a challenge too.

Container ships that are used throughout global maritime shipping enterprise have become so huge.

And that's in an effort to reduce shipping costs.

They're now named things like China Max and Suez Max and Panama Max.

And what that means is these are ships that are just small enough or just big enough to get through those canals in those areas.

Those will not fit in the Arctic.

They may fit someday through the trans-Arctic corridor when sea ice perhaps allows, but through the northern sea route, the max-size container ship, this is the kind of ship that really moves the goods and commerce that Les mentioned, is limited to what's called an Arctic max ship, which is about half the size of a Panama max.

For many years now, as we debated the viability of the North being part of shipping, a lot of myths popped up.

A lot of studies happened, and it's pretty clear.

Obviously, for keel and depth, Arctic Max is about your limit, fully loaded, which was tested a couple years ago through Panama Max, but only half loaded.

Interesting on journeys east and west and west and east.

Got our attention.

China, very clever move for them.

What helped everyone to understand, is this going to work or not, was the fact that China and Southeast Asia Singapore up, Vietnam, South Korea all started significantly studying investing and then going to do tests like Les mentioned.

We now know that this is very serious to China and Southeast Asia.

It's going to happen.

This is all great news for Russia and we can take that information and figure out what it means to us in all the different ways, including the Bering Sea.