When the Venta Maersk, a ship owned by Denmark’s AP M?ller-Maersk, set sail in 2018 from Vladivostok in the far east of Russia towards St Petersburg in the west, the voyage was reported as a harbinger of things to come. It was the first container ship to head for Europe from Asia via the Northern Sea Route, through the Arctic Ocean, instead of the Suez Canal. It was speculated that, as Arctic temperatures rose and sea ice cover fell, the time and cost savings would make such trips routine.

Yet, seven years on, the Venta Maersk remains the only ship from a large international container line to have used the route. In 2024, ships taking the journey handled only 3mn tonnes of cargo transiting between points outside the Arctic, according to Rosatom, the Russian state company that organises the transits. The figures are dwarfed by the 1.57bn tonnes of cargo and 26,434 trips through the Suez Canal in 2023, the last year before attacks by Yemen’s Houthis prompted rerouting of voyages.

The reluctance of most shipping lines to operate in the Arctic has cast doubt over predictions that warming in the sea there would reshape shipping patterns.