Floating ice in Nuuk, Greenland, photographed on Sept. 12, 2025WOO SANG-JO
For the first time, a Korean container ship will attempt to haul general commercial cargo across the Arctic — used cars and auto parts bound for Europe.
The PanStar Arco, a 2,758-TEU container ship, is slated to depart Busan on Saturday and sail through the Arctic's Northeast Passage, calling at the ports in Britain, the Netherlands and Poland before returning to Korea, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said Thursday. The round trip is expected to take 45 days.
TEU, which stands for Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit, is the shipping industry's standard measure of cargo volume, based on the size of one 20-foot container.
Previous Arctic trial voyages by Korean shipping companies involved oil tankers and heavy-cargo carriers hauling specialized freight. This is the first to test the route with a container ship carrying general cargo, which is the kind of shipment that makes up the bulk of global trade.
The Northeast Passage spans roughly 5,600 kilometers (3,480 miles), stretching from the Bering Sea near Alaska in the east to the Barents Sea in the west, crossing through Russian territorial waters and its exclusive economic zone. It has long been considered the Arctic route with the greatest potential for commercial activation.
The PanStar Arco is set to depart from Busan New Port and enter Arctic waters around Aug. 30 and pass through the Arctic region by around Sept. 7. The Arctic crossing toward Europe is expected to take about eight days and cover roughly 6,400 kilometers. From there, the ship will call at Britain's Felixstowe on Sept. 9, the Netherlands' Rotterdam on Sept. 11 and Poland's Gdansk on Sept. 15, before returning to Busan New Port around Oct. 5.
The PanStar Acro container ship is docked at Busan North Port on Aug. 20.YONHAP
The ship is expected to carry about 737 TEU of cargo — including chemical products, used cars and auto parts — along with 100 empty containers, for a total of 837 TEU.
"By transporting actual cargo, we will assess the technical, environmental and commercial viability of the Northeast Passage, as well as demand from cargo owners and logistics companies," said Lee Soo-ho, head of the ministry's Arctic Shipping Route Promotion Headquarters (translated).
Korea previously conducted five Arctic route trial voyages, starting with Hyundai Glovis, an oil tanker operator, in 2013, and continuing through Pan Ocean, a heavy-cargo carrier, in 2016 — but the trials stopped due to uncertainty over year-round operations. The reason for resuming trial voyages after a more-than-decade-long pause is economic viability: As climate change accelerates the melting of Arctic sea ice, shipping lanes through the region have widened.
According to previous research, a cargo ship traveling from Busan to Rotterdam via the Northeast Passage, rather than the Suez Canal, can cut its sailing distance by up to 40 percent — about 7,000 kilometers — and shorten its transit time by more than 10 days. Fuel costs are reduced as well. According to an analysis by the Korea Maritime Institute, a single voyage from Busan to Rotterdam via the Northeast Passage costs $3 million in the summer, about 22 percent cheaper than the $3.83 million cost of the Suez route.
The government is also pursuing international cooperation to explore the viability of the Northwest Passage, another Arctic route that passes through waters north of Canada. On Aug. 5, the Ulsan Port Authority and the Korea Ocean Business Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with a Dutch shipping company experienced in polar navigation to help activate Arctic shipping routes. Building on the agreement, the parties plan to expand cooperation by sharing polar navigation data and operational experience, and jointly identifying cargo demand that could be transported via the Northwest Passage.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
