Seatrade-Maritime: Sea Legend container ship reaches UK after Arctic voyage

Published by Seatrade-Maritime

The container ship Dubai Tower has arrived in the UK following a voyage from Ningbo, China via the Northern Sea Route in the Russian Arctic.

The 1,740 teu Dubai Tower is calling at the QEII berth in Teesport in the Northeast of England according to AIS tracking data from Pole Star Global.

The Liberian-registered Dubai Tower is the first of eight weekly voyages that Sea Legend is offering during the summer ice season in the Arctic on its China Arctic Express Service.

The container ship departed Ningbo in China on 15 August and was expected to arrive in Felixstowe, UK on 5 September. Teesport was not originally listed by Sea Legend as port of call and the QEII berth is designed to handle bulk and project cargoes rather than containers.

Sailing to UK and Europe via the NSR roughly halves the voyage time between Asia and Europe via the Cape of Good Hope which takes around 40 – 50 days, but is only possible during a limited period when the Arctic ice melts in the summer months.

Two other Chinese carriers New New Shipping and OVP Shipping are offering Asia – Europe services via the Arctic along with container shipping newcomer PanStar from South Korea.

PanStar’s trial Arctic voyage on the PanStar Arco is currently heading south off the coast of Norway based on its AIS signal. According to analyst Alphaliner the 2,758 teu vessel has 737 teu of laden containers onboard.

According to the Centre for High North Logistics 2025 saw 103 transit voyages of the NSR by 88 vessels between 30 June and 30 November. These included 15 container ship voyages with eight eastbound and seven westbound. Tankers completed the largest number of passages of the Arctic route with 34 voyages last year.