Motorways of Seas up to Kemi

By Hannu Tikkala

Sustainability in the northern EU area and North-West Russia can be improved substantially by promoting cargo flows to the EU's northernmost universal port, the Port of Kemi.

Barents Transport Corridor (BTC) runs via Kemi to Barents area and to City of Murmansk, Russia. Multinational companies Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro will soon start exploiting huge oil and gas deposits of Barents sea. This will rapidly expand project cargo and industrial equipment deliveries to the Barents I area. Today BTC route I could relieve conges- I tions in St. Petersburg: I Murmansk area with I more than one million I inhabitants supplied I mainly from the South I via E-18 road of 1.400 I kilometres. Modal shift I from road to sea via I Port of Kemi would I save environment, time I and financial resources. This fact has been studied and documented by partly EU funded project. Port of Kemi supplies transit cargo flows to Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Expanding to Russian areas would also balance the vessel traffic - by filling up almost empty vessels that sail up to Kemi for loading paper industry products. Nearly 700 vessels call Kemi each year, all year round. The Port handles about 3 million tons and 60.000 converted TEUs annually. After investment programme of MEUR 35 Lapland's Deep-Water Harbour Ajos has I a great effect on positive development at the top of Europe.

The next step is to exploit I iron ore deposits of North-I land Resources Inc in Lap-I land and to export 3-13 mil-I lion tonnes of iron pellets via I Port of Kemi to European markets. EU is now suffering from missing amount of iron supply. Mining in Lapland may double the self-sufficiency rate from existing 15%.

All this growing activity in the North needs recognition and support from the European Union. The logistics connections and infrastructure support for this arctic area of EU need to be awarded priority status in TEN-T network. The Motorway of the Seas should be drawn to Kemi, with extension via BTC to Barents area. Only effective infrastructure guarantees the supply of iron and energy from these exceptionally nearby areas.