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companies. It can be cruise vessels or LNG tankers which should operate from for example the Port of Sabetta, of which we

Changes in Arctic Ops quite a lot of experience,” Westilä points out, referring to Russia’s recently initiated

Leading themes of the Arctic Council relates to environmental protection, connectivity, meteorological cooperation and education. Mikko Niini is heading the Arctic

LNG exports from that port on the Yamal

Economic Council’s Maritime Transportation Working Group. Priori-

Peninsula. Aboa Mare’s ice simulator was ties at the AEC during the Finnish Chairmanships until 2019 in- used extensively in the development of the clude projects under the three main themes, Interconnected layout of that port, in 2013, and in the train-

Arctic, Competent Arctic and Safe Arctic. He notes that the ing of of? cers from Teekay, Dynagas, and global temperature increase is much higher in the Arctic

MOL with LNG carriers operating there. than in other parts of the world. “This trend is going to “Another example, the U.S. Coast Guard is continue and practically we are already in a situation looking for new icebreakers and has visited where only the center parts of the Arctic Ocean is

Aboa Mare when looking into that project having multi-year ice and most of the ice cover is and in how to arrange the training of their single year ice. The average winter ice thickness is of? cers. Their challenge is about the same still up to 2m thick, but recent ships developed can as what we have, because the breaking of cope with such ice independently. He noted how, the ice in the best possible way is based due to the political situation, ExxonMobil’s joint drill- on experience, and if you have a couple of ing project with Rosneft in the Kara Sea is on hold winter when you do not see the ice, skills now. “Because of the political situation Russia is and the knowledge becomes less and less. now increasing cooperation with China. Chinese drill-

He points out how you can use simulator ing rigs have been drilling in the Kara Sea and Pechora training to keep up the skills in ice naviga-

Sea of Russia. This is likely to happen also this year.” He tion, pointing out that you need to do it in said there is a general trend of increased protective actions real conditions as well. “But you can come in Russia with the requirement for domestic content in their quite close to reality in our simulators.” projects. “As new icebreaker projects are being developed in vari- ous countries, Finland tries to approach the companies and projects as an integrated team through Team Arctic Finland.”

Photo: Flying Focus and Arctia Ltd.

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