Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 76 ›› Issue (5): 1122-1135.doi: 10.11821/dlxb202105006

• Research on the Arctic Region • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Maritime accessibility and navigation cost evolution estimation of Sino-Russian oil and gas resources from 2030 to 2070

ZHANG Tianyuan1(), HUANG Jixia2,3(), WANG Li2   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2020-11-26 Revised:2021-03-31 Online:2021-05-25 Published:2021-07-25
  • Contact: HUANG Jixia E-mail:tyzhang@mail.bnu.edu.cn;huangjx@bjfu.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    Chinese Academy of Sciences(ZDRW-ZS-2017-4);The Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(XDA190705)

Abstract:

Due to the rapid development of society and economy, China's demand for energy and mineral resources is increasing day by day. Therefore, China has carried out a lot of energy trade with Russia, a country with adequate resources. Under the background of global warming and the gradual improvement of Arctic navigation, the energy transportation between the ports of the two countries can be completed through the northeast passage, which will be better than the traditional passage in terms of time, cost, and security. In this paper, the weighted average travel time was used to quantify the accessibility from Chinese ports to Russian oil and gas resources from 2030 to 2070 under climate change scenarios, and a shipping cost system was established to calculate the navigation cost. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The accessibility of Chinese ports to Russian oil resources will be better than that to Russian gas resources. (2) The accessibility of Chinese ports to Russian resources will be reduced by 7 hours on average every decade, and the accessibility of Nantong Port to Russian resources will be the best. (3) The navigation cost of Chinese ports will be reduced by $5000 on average every decade, and the cost of the route from Nantong Port will be the lowest. (4) Under the high emission concentration scenario, merchant shipping will cover a wide range in the future. This paper quantified and evaluated the time and cost of energy trade between China and Russia from 2030 to 2070, which provided a theoretical reference for Sino-Russian maritime transportation and energy trade.

Key words: Sino-Russian oil and gas shipping, accessibility, shipping cost, Northeast Passage, Polar Silk Road