Impact of Northern Sea Route on China's grain imports with EU countries

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) has been navigated successfully with the melting polar ice and developing technology, which will impact China's bulk trade with the European Union (EU) countries. This research mainly investigates the effect of using NSR for grain transport with a minimum comprehensive cost, including shipping costs and environemental effects. Integer programming has been applied to optimize the simulation system with 24 routes and six types of vessels (five conventional vessels and one ice-class vessel) in the with-NSR and without-NSR situations. The result shows that the cost will be reduced by 20% with-NSR scenario, and an additional 7% reduction can be found with the increase in the ice-class vessel fleet. Due to the current demand, panamax-sized vessels are the most preferable. This article also provides an optimal and feasible framework for vessel scheduling in with-NSR and without-NSR situations.北极东北航道（Northern Sea Route, NSR）随着极地海冰消融与技术迭代已实现安全通航，其将对中国与欧盟（European Union, EU）成员国的散装贸易产生影响。本研究以综合成本（含航运成本与环境成本）最小化为目标，重点探讨使用北极东北航道开展粮食运输的相关效益。研究采用整数规划（integer programming）方法对模拟系统进行优化，模拟场景包含启用北极东北航道与不启用北极东北航道两种情况，共涵盖24条航线与6类船舶，其中包括5艘常规船舶与1艘冰级船舶（ice-class vessel）。结果表明，启用北极东北航道的场景可使运输成本降低20%，而通过增加冰级船舶编队规模，还可额外实现7%的成本缩减。结合当前运输需求，巴拿马型船舶（panamax-sized vessels）为最优选型。本研究同时为启用与不启用北极东北航道场景下的船舶调度提供了一套最优且可行的框架。