Stena Bulk and South Korean Hyundai Glovis, the Hyundai group’s shipping arm, will begin collaborating with a cargo shipped via the North East Passage. Stena Polaris, a P-MAX tanker with ice class 1A, will leave Ust Luga in the Gulf of Finland on 15th September with a cargo of 37,000 tons of naphtha. The voyage, which will go via the North East Passage, is expected to take 28 days with the tanker arriving in a port in South Korea in mid-October.

So far this year, a total of more than 270 ships have been given permission to sail through the North East Passage, although far from all of them will do so.