Giant tanker with oil products on way across Arctic to China.

VLADIVOSTOK, August 20 (Itar-Tass) - The giant tanker Baltika is on
the way to the eastern Arctic sector, where the situation is favorable at
present.
Some floes are seen there, and more than ten ships are moving various
routes, including the dredging vessel Anabar on the Northern Sea Route
from the Lena River to Sakhalin, the Vladivostok sea rescue coordinating
centre reported.
The tanker is on the way across the Kara Sea to the Vilkitsky Strait
which separates the Taimyr Peninsula from the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago
and links the Kara Sea with the Laptev Sea. At any season the
140-kilometre-long and 56-kilometre-wide strait is the most difficult
section of the Northern Route, where large piles of broken hummock ice
fields may block the way for transport vessels. The Baltika is accompanied
by two icebreakers, the Taimyr and the Rossiya, able to cope with most
difficult ice obstructions.
The hydro-geographic research vessels Pyotr Kottsov and Ivan Kireyev
also participate in the experimental trip of the tanker. They measure
depths along the route.
The Baltika's depth below the water surface is about 15 metres. No
such deep-draft vessel went the route ever in history of exploration of
the region.
The tanker left Murmansk on August 14 and is expected to deliver
100,000 tonnes of oil products to China. If the trip is successful, it
will prove once more that Northern Route transportation by large freight
ships from Europe to Asia is not only possible, but also economically
expedient.
-0-pan/gor