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Project Dory Monitoring 25 August 2017
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China’s Big Businesses Risk Trump’s Punishment Over North Korea
Aug 25, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Bruce Einhorn and Heesu Lee
President Donald Trump’s administration is looking for ways to pressure North Korea to stop developing a nuclear-weapons program, and some American analysts warn that the search may end on the doorsteps of China’s biggest oil companies and banks. -
U.S. holds powerful but risky tool to halt North Korea's nuclear progress
Aug 25, 2017 | Reuters
By Yeganeh Torbati and David Brunnstrom
The U.S. government is turning the screws on companies that do business with North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions but has stopped short of taking the more aggressive, and riskier, move of targeting Chinese banks that facilitate Pyongyang’s trade in arms and other banned goods. -
China launches 8,000 water clean-up projects worth $100 billion in first half of 2017
Aug 24, 2017 | Reuters ( In Business Insider)
China launched nearly 8,000 water clean-up projects in the first half of 2017 with projected total investment of 667.4 billion yuan ($100 billion), the environment ministry said on Thursday. -
China to use ‘all means necessary’ to defend itself against Trump ‘protectionism’
Aug 24, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Simon Denyer
China sharpened its rhetoric over the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate its trade practices, vowing on Thursday to use “all means necessary” to defend the country and its companies. -
Exclusive: U.S. steel executives appeal directly to Trump for import restrictions
Aug 25, 2017 | Reuters
By David Lawder
American steel industry executives have appealed directly to President Donald Trump for immediate import restrictions in a letter seen by Reuters, as a U.S. Commerce Department national security probe languishes and steel imports surge back to 2015 levels. -
Russian tanker sails through Arctic without icebreaker for first time
Aug 24, 2017 | The Guadian
By Patrick Barkham
A Russian tanker has travelled through the northern sea route in record speed and without an icebreaker escort for the first time, highlighting how climate change is opening up the high Arctic.
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China’s Big Businesses Risk Trump’s Punishment Over North Korea
Aug 25, 2017 | Bloomberg
By Bruce Einhorn and Heesu Lee
President Donald Trump’s administration is looking for ways to pressure North Korea to stop developing a nuclear-weapons program, and some American analysts warn that the search may end on the doorsteps of China’s biggest oil companies and banks.
China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, playing a vital role in keeping Kim Jong Un’s regime afloat. Two-way trade increased about 11 percent to $2.55 billion in the first half of 2017, compared with a year earlier.
The U.S. successfully lobbied for stricter UN sanctions against North Korea this month, and the Treasury Department on Aug. 22 sanctioned Chinese and Russian entities it accused of assisting Kim’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. U.S. prosecutors also want to recover $11 million from companies based in China and Singapore that they accused of conspiring with North Korea to evade sanctions.
So far, the U.S. is seeking to punish relatively minor companies such as Dandong Chengtai Trading Ltd., which is accused of laundering money for North Korea. But there’s reason for Chinese officials to worry that the America may go after major state-owned enterprises and banks, such as China National Petroleum Corp. and Bank of China.
“We have the ability to say, ‘Any Chinese SOE that we consider relevant is fair game,”’ said Derek Scissors, resident scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “We haven’t even gotten close to the economic coercion we’re capable of.”Bigger Game
Yet that coercion might unleash a trade war between the two biggest economies that would affect everything from soybeans to smartphones. China is the U.S.’s largest trading partner, with $578.6 billion in two-way trade last year, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
“The Trump administration is saying to the Chinese, ‘If you don’t work with us in New York, we will do a lot more of these secondary sanctions and not just against small fry, but also big companies,”’ said Gary Samore, former coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction in the Obama White House.
While other former advisers in the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama advocated additional sanctions at a Senate hearing in May, the U.S. is wary of escalating too far.
“If we were to impose penalties on really big Chinese financial institutions, it would have major economic consequences on the U.S.,” said Samore, who is now executive director for research at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Confronting high-profile institutions like the Bank of China would be “a big damn deal,’’ said Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and a former Obama sanctions official. “Those kinds of bigger sanctions are ones being avoided by this administration because they have bigger fish to fry.”
The most dramatic step would be for the U.S. to punish companies for supplying oil to North Korea. China sends at least 1 million tons of crude to its reclusive neighbor every year, accounting for almost all its supply.Economy’s Fuel
Most of those exports are from state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., said Kim Kyung Sool, a senior research fellow at the Korea Energy Economics Institute. CNPC is the controlling shareholder of PetroChina Co., a Hong Kong-listed company with investors such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., Blackrock Inc. and Citigroup Inc.
“Suspending China’s crude exports to North Korea will be the ultimate card we have,” said Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector who is president of the World Institute for North Korea Studies in Seoul. “The nation would virtually come to a stop.”
CNPC declined to comment Thursday.Go Time
Similarly, the U.S. could sanction state-owned Chinese banks. In November, the Obama administration announced rules to prevent North Korean banks and front companies from having improper access to the U.S. financial system. In June, the Treasury Department followed up by blacklisting Bank of Dandong, a small Chinese institution it said was a venue for North Korean financial activity.
Now it’s time to threaten bigger Chinese banks, said Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank in Washington. That could pressure China’s leadership to crack down on North Korean business within China, he said.
A wider net of U.S. sanctions could ensnare the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank and other big institutions that operate in the U.S., where they help smaller counterparts do dollar transactions, Ruggiero said. Chinese banks that conduct business benefiting North Korean state companies risk access to the U.S. financial system even if they do it unknowingly.
“Medium or large Chinese banks are now under an obligation, if they value their U.S. dollar relationships, to ensure that these transactions don’t occur,” Ruggiero said. “That’s really where the next level can be.”
ICBC and China Construction Bank declined to comment.
While the potential of sanctioning bigger Chinese entities is real, the practicality is uncertain. China’s foreign ministry on Aug. 23 criticized the latest moves by U.S. prosecutors in Washington, calling them the “wrong methods,” and saying China can use its own laws to punish violators.
“China is opposed to unilateral sanctions outside the UN Security Council’s framework, especially countries’ exercising long-arm jurisdiction, in line with their domestic law, on Chinese domestic entities or individuals,” Hua Chunying, a ministry spokeswoman, said in Beijing.
President Xi Jinping has several ways to retaliate against the U.S., creating the possibility of an all-out trade war between the two biggest economies. Apple Inc., Boeing Co., Starbucks Corp. and Westinghouse Electric Co. would be among the biggest U.S. companies at risk.
The U.S. Firms at Risk From China Trade War: QuickTake Scorecard
That also would come at the expense of U.S. efforts to address issues such as China’s trade surplus or the state of intellectual property rights there. Trump has unveiled a 100-day action plan pledging to “use every tool” against alleged foreign trade abuses.
China supported the UN sanctions adopted Aug. 5 that ban North Korean exports of coal, iron ore, lead ore and seafood. Those were seen as a way to de-escalate tensions. Yet China’s in no hurry to see the Kim regime fall, fearing an ensuing refugee crisis and the positioning of U.S. troops on its border.
“China is not a small country that you can just squeeze and it will do whatever,” said Yuan Zheng, a senior fellow at the Institute of American Studies in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank. “China won’t accept it and will take measures in response. The whole atmosphere of U.S.-China relations will get worse.”
— With assistance by Peter Martin, Jun Luo, and Aibing Guo
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-24/china-s-big-businesses-risk-trump-s-punishment-over-north-korea
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U.S. holds powerful but risky tool to halt North Korea's nuclear progress
Aug 25, 2017 | Reuters
By Yeganeh Torbati and David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is turning the screws on companies that do business with North Korea in violation of U.N. sanctions but has stopped short of taking the more aggressive, and riskier, move of targeting Chinese banks that facilitate Pyongyang’s trade in arms and other banned goods.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration blacklisted 16 Chinese, Russian and Singaporean companies and individuals for trading with banned North Korean entities, including in coal, oil and metals.
The campaign to pressure North Korea’s trading partners is aimed at eventually forcing Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile programs.
The latest measures did not, however, sanction the Chinese banks that experts and former U.S. officials say enable North Korea’s international trade, often by laundering funds through the United States.
Targeting those banks with measures known as “secondary sanctions” could effectively bar them from making U.S. dollar transactions or moving money through U.S. banks, a death knell for most financial institutions, or subject them to huge fines like those levied on European banks accused of failing to follow sanctions on Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
China hawks within the Trump administration who have been frustrated by Beijing’s perceived inaction on North Korea have been pressing for secondary sanctions.
But a more moderate, pro-business faction, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, is concerned about the impact such sanctions would have on the economic relationship with Beijing.
“I am not surprised they held off on (sanctioning) Chinese financial institutions,” said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who worked on Iran and North Korea sanctions, referring to Tuesday’s actions.
“Once we go down the road of hitting a Chinese bank that is deeply connected to the U.S. financial system, things will begin to move very fast and be quite unpredictable.”
China, the world’s second-largest economy, is the United States’ largest trading partner in terms of goods and an enormous market for American businesses, making the United States vulnerable to any retaliation by Beijing.
Earlier this month, China signed on to new U.N. sanctions on North Korea that banned the export of coal, iron, seafood, and lead.
Previous U.N. resolutions had restricted, rather than banned, some of those exports. Chinese and Russian support for the new sanctions was a major diplomatic win for the Trump administration.
Dan Fried, the State Department’s sanctions coordinator until February, said “as a general rule,” Washington should warn China before blacklisting Chinese banks, though that may not always be possible. Sanctioning Chinese companies violating U.N. sanctions by dealing with blacklisted North Korean firms would be a good step before going after banks broadly, he said.
“Coal and seafood exports from North Korea are now banned,” Fried said. “So we should go after any and all companies importing them.”
He said Washington should also consider “naming and shaming” companies, particularly in textiles, that use North Korean labor, adding that this could include both Chinese and Western firms.
Around 5,200 Chinese companies traded with North Korea from 2013 to 2016, according to an analysis by the non-profit research group C4ADS, a relatively small number that could be vulnerable to enforcement measures, experts said.
But David Cohen, a former deputy director of the CIA, said implementing U.N. resolutions likely would not entirely address financial relationships North Korean front companies in Hong Kong or China have with Chinese banks and which are “used to funnel funds back to the regime, particularly from illicit sales.”
“So that’s an area where secondary sanctions could be effective,” Cohen said.
A broad campaign to cut off North Korea’s financial links would have a successful recent precedent: the intensive U.S. effort to halt Iran’s nuclear program, which included levying $12 billion in fines against European banks that facilitated Iranian trade.
Both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations limited Iran’s access to financial channels, and eventually went after Iran’s broader trade links. That effort was backed by strong Congressional sanctions.
The measures worked. Iran’s oil exports dropped by more than half, inflation spiked, the currency plummeted, and economic output shrank 5.6 percent in 2012 and 1.7 percent in 2013, according to the International Monetary Fund. Iran agreed to negotiate over its nuclear program, and eventually reached a deal with the United States and world powers.
In a warning shot against North Korea, the U.S. Treasury Department in June targeted a small Chinese bank, the Bank of Dandong, accusing it of laundering money for Pyongyang.
Also in June, the Department of Justice said a China-based company was laundering U.S. dollars through American banks for a sanctioned North Korean bank. And a handful of other recent U.S. measures have targeted North Korea’s international trade and finance networks.
But Washington has not targeted Chinese banks working with North Korea in a broad way, and Congress has not yet imposed the kinds of mandatory secondary sanctions that strengthened the hand of U.S. negotiators when dealing with Iran.
Anthony Ruggiero, a former U.S. Treasury official now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, believes fears of Chinese retaliation for action against Chinese banks are overblown.
"There's a way to do it," he said. "You don't have to freeze their assets; you don't have to cut them off from the United States. You can basically declare that their compliance procedures are not appropriate and that they can get significant fines.
"(Then) they will start to ask the right questions."
Congress is due to consider legislation requiring U.S. measures against any banks that deal with North Korea. The bill is based loosely on the same Congressional sanctions that were imposed on Iran.
"You've seen a series of administrations, Republicans and Democrats, who believed that China would cooperate when it came to applying economic pressure to North Korea," Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat and one of the bill's lead sponsors, said in an interview last week.
"We have to move from quiet requests for cooperation to very clear demands that China enforce these sanctions that it signed up for."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-usa-sanctions-idUSKCN1B4267?il=0
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China launches 8,000 water clean-up projects worth $100 billion in first half of 2017
Aug 24, 2017 | Reuters ( In Business Insider)
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China launched nearly 8,000 water clean-up projects in the first half of 2017 with projected total investment of 667.4 billion yuan ($100 billion), the environment ministry said on Thursday.
The projects were devised as part of a 2015 action plan to treat and prevent water pollution, and cover 325 contaminated groundwater sites across the country, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) said in a notice.
A total of 343 contaminated sites had been identified, meaning that 95 percent had drawn up plans to bring water quality up to required standards, it said.
However, it noted that some regions were still behind schedule when it came to meeting their 2017 water pollution goals.
Large amounts of China's water have been rendered unusable as a result of poorly regulated industrial expansion, overmining and the uncontrolled use of pesticides and fertilisers.
With China desperate to increase supplies to guarantee future food and energy security, it promised in 2015 to make significant improvements in its major waterways and curb untreated wastewater from highly polluting sectors like mining, steelmaking, textiles, printing and oil refining.
The MEP said this month that overall water quality had improved in the first half of 2017, although some regions registered an increase in substandard samples over the period.
China grades its water in six bands, with the lowest "below grade 5" considered unusable even for industrial or irrigation purposes and described as "black and stinky" water.
Of 2,100 "black and stinky" sites identified, 44.1 percent had completed treatment projects in the first half of the year, the ministry said, noting that the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Liaoning and Anhui had fallen behind.
In a bid to protect rural water supplies, China also identified 636,000 square kilometers (246,000 square miles) of land that would be made off limits to animal husbandry, and it shut 213,000 livestock and poultry farms in the first six months.
The ministry also said 809 new household sewage treatment facilities were built in the first half, but the regions of Tianjin, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Xinjiang, Hubei and Guangdong were behind schedule, it said.
China said on Wednesday that it has already appointed 200,000 "river chiefs" throughout the country as part of a new system aimed at making local officials more accountable when it comes to improving water quality and curbing pollution.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-launches-8000-water-clean-up-projects-worth-100-billion-in-first-half-of-2017-2017-8
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China to use ‘all means necessary’ to defend itself against Trump ‘protectionism’
Aug 24, 2017 | The Washington Post
By Simon Denyer
BEIJING — China sharpened its rhetoric over the Trump administration’s efforts to investigate its trade practices, vowing on Thursday to use “all means necessary” to defend the country and its companies.
Although analysts don’t believe a trade war between the world’s two largest economies is imminent, China’s harsh words underline a recent fraying of the relationship between Beijing and Washington over trade and North Korea.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry demanded that the United States “immediately” withdraw unilateral sanctions imposed on several Chinese companies and individuals accused of illegally trading with the Pyongyang regime.
President Trump initially said he would set aside trade disputes with China to gain Beijing’s cooperation in reining in North Korea, but he reversed course this month by calling for a probe into the theft of intellectual property by Chinese companies.
Experts say the Trump administration may be coming to terms with the limits of Beijing’s willingness to put pressure on Pyongyang and wants to demonstrate that it is taking steps to bring down the trade deficit, a key campaign promise.
n Monday, the Chinese Commerce Ministry called the Trump administration’s intellectual property investigation “irresponsible” and “protectionist,” arguing that it ignored the rules of the World Trade Organization.
On Thursday, it upped the ante, saying the decision had “poured cold water” on efforts to improve bilateral trade relations.
“We are strongly discontented with this unilateralism and protectionism and will take all means necessary to resolutely defend the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese side and Chinese enterprises,” Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said at a news conference, calling the Trump administration move a “violation” of the international trade system.
Nevertheless, experts think a trade war remains an unlikely and distant prospect, mainly because it would be damaging to both sides.
“If Trump initiates sanctions against China, especially the Section 301 investigation, it would be like killing 10,000 enemies at the cost of losing 8,000 of its own troops,” said Wei Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and a former vice commerce minister. “It’s really unnecessary, and it would cause grave losses to both sides.”
Although the United States runs a $310 billion trade deficit with China, Wei said American exports to China were substantial and growing fast.
The inquiry into the theft of U.S. intellectual property could take months to conclude. In the meantime, China will want to keep relations on an even keel, ahead of a key Communist Party congress in the fall and ahead of a planned visit by Trump later this year.
Shortly before he left the White House, Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon had argued in an interview that the U.S. government should be “maniacally focused” on the economic war that he said China is waging on the United States.
But while U.S. business leaders want to avoid a trade war, the idea that the United States should get tougher with China has many supporters.
Indeed U.S. trade groups have become increasingly vociferous in recent years about growing Chinese protectionism and barriers to investment, and they have broadly welcomed Trump’s Aug. 14 order.
More than 20 percent of 100 American companies that responded to a survey by the U.S.-China Business Council said they were asked to transfer technology in the past three years as a condition of market access.
Beijing requires automakers and some other foreign companies in China to work through joint ventures, in which they often are required to give technology to partners that might ultimately become competitors.
Luna Lin contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-to-use-all-necessary-means-to-defend-itself-against-trump-protectionism/2017/08/24/d0445ec1-9b07-40d4-aaf5-94f8235bef7b_story.html?utm_term=.abf9184180ba
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Exclusive: U.S. steel executives appeal directly to Trump for import restrictions
Aug 25, 2017 | Reuters
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American steel industry executives have appealed directly to President Donald Trump for immediate import restrictions in a letter seen by Reuters, as a U.S. Commerce Department national security probe languishes and steel imports surge back to 2015 levels.
Senior executives from 25 U.S. steel and steel-related companies sent the letter to Trump late on Wednesday, saying the industry was suffering the consequences of government inaction that could change with his “bold leadership” and “America First” vision.
“The need for action is urgent. Since the 232 investigation was announced in April, imports have continued to surge,” the executives said in the letter.
“Immediate action must meaningfully adjust imports to restore healthy levels of capacity utilization and profitability to the domestic industry over a sustained period,” they wrote.
A White House spokeswoman said she could not immediately comment on the letter.
The Commerce Department has delayed the release of its recommendations from a “Section 232” investigation into whether steel imports pose a threat to national security, a finding that could lead to Trump imposing broad quotas or tariffs on steel imports.
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), an industry trade group, reported on Wednesday that total steel imports through July this year were up 22 percent from the same period a year ago, with imports taking 28 percent of the U.S. market.
Imports captured 30 percent of the U.S. market in June, according to Commerce Department data compiled by the institute. Steel imports dipped briefly last year because of Commerce Department anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties imposed on steel products from China and some other countries.
The letter followed last week’s departure of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who had been a vocal advocate for steel tariffs and other trade protections in the administration’s internal debates over trade.'SOONER RATHER THAN LATER'
The executives from companies including Nucor Corp (NUE.N) U.S. Steel (X.N), ArcelorMittal (MT.AS) and Commercial Metals Co (CMC.N) said the sustained surge of steel imports into the United States had “hollowed out” much of the domestic steel industry and was threatening its ability to meet national security needs.
“Your leadership in finding a solution to the crisis facing the steel industry is badly needed now. Only you can authorize actions that can solve this crisis and we are asking for your immediate assistance,” they wrote.
Under the Cold War-era law authorizing the steel national security probe, Trump would have 90 days to act once the Commerce Department submits its probe.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had set an internal deadline for announcing his steel recommendations at the end of June, but it was delayed for a G20 summit and bilateral talks with China in July. Trump said later that month a final decision may wait until other top priority issues on his agenda are addressed, including healthcare and taxes.
The steel executives are concerned that the Commerce report could be delayed further, pushing off a decision on quotas or tariffs until next year and allowing more foreign steel to flood the U.S. market, said Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, who also signed the letter.
"This needs to be wrapped up sooner rather than later and we wanted to help the president understand that," Bell said.
Another signatory, AISI President Tom Gibson, told Reuters the industry was trying to keep the issue "front and center" while Trump administration officials deal with a range of other issues from North Korea to fiscal policy.
He said that domestic steel producers' capacity utilization rate was hovering around 75 percent, as steelmakers from South Korea to Turkey target U.S. demand to soak up their excess output.
"Over the long term, that is not a sustainable level," Gibson said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-steel-exclusive-idUSKCN1B427B
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Russian tanker sails through Arctic without icebreaker for first time
Aug 24, 2017 | The Guadian
By Patrick Barkham
A Russian tanker has travelled through the northern sea route in record speed and without an icebreaker escort for the first time, highlighting how climate change is opening up the high Arctic.
The $300m Christophe de Margerie carried a cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Hammerfest in Norway to Boryeong in South Korea in 19 days, about 30% quicker than the conventional southern shipping route through the Suez Canal.
The tanker was built to take advantage of the diminishing Arctic sea ice and deliver gas from a new $27m facility on the Yamal Peninsula, the biggest Arctic LNG project so far which has been championed by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.Murmansk's silver lining: Arctic city banks on ice melt for its renaissance
On its maiden voyage, the innovative tanker used its integral icebreaker to cross ice fields 1.2m thick, passing along the northern sea section of the route in the Russian Arctic in a record six-and-a-half days.
“It’s very quick, particularly as there was no icebreaker escort which previously there had been in journeys,” said Bill Spears, spokesperson for Sovcomflot, the shipping company which owns the tanker. “It’s very exciting that a ship can go along this route all year round.”
Environmentalists have expressed concern over the risks of increased ship traffic in the pristine Arctic but Sovcomflot stressed the tanker’s green credentials. As well as using conventional fuel, the Christophe de Margerie can be powered by the LNG it is transporting, reducing its sulphur oxide emissions by 90% and nitrous oxide emissions by 80% when powered this way. “This is a significant factor in a fragile ecosystem,” said Spears.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to youRead more
The northern sea route between Siberia and the Pacific is still closed to conventional shipping for much of the year. But the Christophe de Margerie, the first of 15 such tankers expected to be built, extends the navigation window for the northern sea route from four months with an expensive icebreaker to all year round in a westerly direction.
In the route’s busiest year so far, 2013, there were only 15 international crossings but the Russian government predicts that cargo along this route will grow tenfoldby 2020. This link with the Pacific reduces its need to sell gas through pipelines to Europe.
“There has been a steady increase in traffic in recent years,” said Spears. “There’s always been trade along this route but it’s been restricted a lot by the ice. It’s exciting that this route presents a much shorter alternative than the Suez route. It’s a major saving.”
Simon Boxall, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton, said that shipping companies were making a “safe bet” in building ships in anticipation that the northern sea route will open up. “Even if we stopped greenhouse emissions tomorrow, the acceleration in the loss of Arctic ice is unlikely to be reversed,” he said.
“We’ve been able to sail through the north-west passage for several years now but the northern passage, which goes past Russia, has opened up on and off since 2010. We’re going to see this route being used more and more by 2020.
“The irony is that one advantage of climate change is that we will probably use less fuel going to the Pacific.”
The extent of Arctic ice fell to a new wintertime low in March this year after freakishly high temperatures in the polar regions, and hit its second lowest summer extent last September.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/24/russian-tanker-sails-arctic-without-icebreaker-first-time
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