A Chinese shipowner is set to begin the world's first weekly container service through the Arctic on an express route to Europe on Saturday, making the voyages until October.

The company, Sea Legend, tested the premise last year when it completed the first China-to-Europe container ship transit through the frigid Northern Sea Route (NSR) along Russia's coastline.

The journey from the city of Ningbo to the English port of Felixstowe took 20 days, according to the company – about half the time it takes for shipments from China to Europe via the Suez Canal.

Sea Legend will become the first operator to run a regular container service through the NSR, for a seven-week period until October 3.

A Sea Legend ship called "Dubai Tower" will leave Ningbo for Felixstowe on Saturday night, an employee at the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port said on Friday.

Other shipping companies have transited the Arctic passage before, with Denmark's Maersk the first to do so in 2018.

The NSR saw a record 23 container transits in 2025, up from 15 the previous year, according to shipping analysis from business insurer Allianz Commercial published in June.

Analysts say the Arctic is an important future trade route, particularly for China, which in 2018 outlined its vision for greater access to the region through a "Polar Silk Road".

The period up to October 3 is "broadly aligned with the period when ships can expect to transit without icebreaker assistance", Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at the shipping lobby BIMCO, wrote in a note.

Sea Legend's departing ships, however, will carry less than 0.5 percent of the weekly container volume from East and Southeast Asia to North Europe, he said.

The limited duration of the service "is equal to less than 0.1 percent of the annual container volumes between the two regions", he added. (AFP)



Edited by Azam Khan