The international EC funded project Arctic Demonstration and Exploratory Voyage (ARCDEV) aimed to investigate the conditions for navigating an ice-classified tanker vessel between Europe and gas and oil fields in the Ob Estuary at the northwestern Siberian, during winter ice conditions April-May 1998. The ARCDEV convoy was supported by near real-time ice information derived from ERS-2 and RADARSAT ScanSAR Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Prior to and during the voyage a total of 28 satellite SAR images were acquired, analysed and transferred to the convoy before its arrival to the area covered in the image. ERS2 SAR images obtained prior to and during the transit into the Ob estuary were used to select the navigation route through level ice, avoiding hummocks, ridges and other types of deformed ice which make ice navigation particular difficult (Pettersson et al. 1999). A RADARSAT ScanSAR scene covers up to 500kin wide swaths, and with a 100m resolution it is possible to map in detail the ice cover over large areas. These data offered a unique new opportunity to identify various ice types, deformed ice vs. level ice, leads, polynyas, and other ice phenomena important for the determination of optimal navigation routes. The results of the image analysis were used both in the strategic and the tactical planning of the convoy navigation operations. During the most severe ice conditions for 30 years, it was demonstrated that the use of SAR data could improve the average velocity of icebreaker escorted convoys by a factor of two. This improvement in ice navigation speed has important impact on both economic and safety factors of ice operations in the Arctic.
The western part of Siberia has huge reservoirs of oil and gas, which just recently started to be exploited.
