5.0 Conclusions and Recommendation
A comprehensive simulation was performed using the multi disciplinary tasks. The authors believe that this is the first simulation incorporating the advanced ship technology and detailed historical ice data in the NSR. The following conclusions and recommendations are drawn from the study.
1) The monthly voyage simulation demonstrated the tendencies of the cost components, icebreaker tariffs, escort days for icebreaker routes and transit days etc. The capital costs have the most significant effects among the cost parameters. Thus, 50,000DWT bulk carrier (50BC) has advantage to the other two powerful icebreaking cargo ships if the icebreaker tariff assumed here is proper. The escort days of 50BC are slightly longer than those of 40BC, although the difference is negligible under the adopted escort scenario. The transit days in the N-route is slightly longer than the Southerly route, although its diflerence will be also small, and the escort days in thc N-route is one day longer than the S-route when comparing 25BC and 40BC. The N-route can be promising for the larger capacity ships developed in future.
2) The simulation for the regional routes shows that the western route is far easier than the eastern route. The escort days for the western routes will be less than three days and nearly independent navigation will be possible using 25BC. This fact is coincident with experience gained in the past.
3) The icebreaker tariff is the most significant parameter among the variable cost items. Currently a tariff of up to 20,000 GT is proposed. The winter tariff is slightly cheaper than the summer tariff even though winter navigation needs longer escort days as this simulation shows. In this simulation, the tariff ranging from 4.89 to 5.45 $/GT was adopted. The tariff rate of slightly less than 5.0 $/ton seems to make the NSR economically feasible under the assumptions adopted in this simulation. The tariff rate shall be further discussed based on this kind of simulation, and specified in detail by season and icebreaking capability together with the standby time and standby location of icebreakers.
4) The insurance cost in the NSR is eventually assumed as twice expensive as the Suez route. Accidental or hull damage data were gathered in the INSROP project, although none of the report presented the quantitative risks per voyage. It makes difficult to give the rational insurance cost. The total sinking rate seems to be lower, although no back up data are available. The accidental data shall be open to enable quantitative assessment.
5) The simulation shows that the proper route switching from the NSR to the Suez route considerably reduces the required cost. To reallze it, the advanced satellite technology has to be developed to predict the ice conditions for one or two month in advance before a ship enters into the NSR. The procedures for the permission to the NSR and the contract between a shipping company and a cargo owner should also meet this scenario.
6) The ice data provided from the AARI will be a good bench mark to discuss the rationale for the tariff and other technical assessments. The data will be stowed in the INSROP GIS CD and will be distributed to users.
7) The concept for the ice index is modified from the ice numerals originally introduced in the CASPPR to link the data and the ship speed algorithms. The ice index enables prediction of the ice speed against the given ice conditions with reasonable accuracy. The cumulative ice index is given as summing up the ice index multiplying the segment lengths. That will be a good index to quantitatively express the dif1culty of navigation in the NSR. The difficulty of navigation is conventionally expressed in "Heavy, medium, light" in Russian literatures, It is recommended to express the navigation difficulty using the ice index.
