Weathernews Boosts Bunker-Saving NSR Routing Support

CEO Chihito Kusabiraki (r) says his company has supported thirty-three NSR voyages over the past five years

Weathernews Inc. (Weathernews), which provides weather routing services, port forecasts, and other weather-driven risk communication services aimed at reducing bunker costs, has opened a new subsidiary in Moscow, Weathernews Rus LLC., to support "more cost effective voyages" across the Arctic's Northern Sea Route (NSR).

In conjunction with the new location, Weathernews says that in the fall it plans to launch an "ultra-compact satellite" to monitor Arctic ice conditions along the NSR to provide more accurate information on the region to its customers.

"Weathernews has been developing our Polar Routing Service in order to ensure safe and economical passage for vessels transiting the NSR, and we have supported thirty-three voyage over the past five years. However we think we can provide our customers with even more accuracy, and in real-time as they demand," said CEO Chihito Kusabiraki.

"The establishment of a subsidiary here in Moscow, and then the launch of WNISAT-1R this fall to monitor the Northern Sea Route are both efforts to better meet customer needs for accurate information."

The Arctic has long been touted as a shorter and lower cost route for shipping that has been gaining more interest in recent years.

Any notable traffic shift could have a potentially significant impact on bunkering, as tonnage that transitions to such routes would no longer pass by a number of currently key bunkering ports.

However, as Ship & Bunker reported earlier this year, such a shift is not expected soon; international shipping traffic on the NSR route is said to have been in decline since 2014, and encouragement from China earlier this year on switching to such routes was met with little enthusiasm.