Completion of the first stage of offshore surveys in the framework of the “Arctic Connect” project

During the expedition there have been studied the most complicated, in terms of the ice conditions, sections in the waters of the Northern Sea Route with a total length of 6500 km. The set of the studies included the profile observations by remote geophysical methods that do not damage the environment: the water depth measurement with multi-beam echo, surface hydroloсation of the bottom and study of the structure of the upper thickness of bottom sediments by an acoustic profilograph. The work has been carried out in the areas with the depths ranging from 30 to 613 meters.

“For 105 days of the unique expedition, which started in late July in St. Petersburg, ‘Professor Logachev’ overcame some 16 000 km, successfully carried out the acquisition of the bottom at the sections of the Northern Sea Route in the waters of six seas — the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi, and Bering, — said Sergey Gorkov, Director General — Chairman of the Board of RosGeo. — In difficult conditions of the Arctic the coordinated work and professionalism of the project team enabled to overcome all difficulties and complete the work significantly ahead of schedule. ”

The successful implementation of the work was facilitated by the favorable ice situation in the Arctic Ocean, this allowed the ship to conduct the research in high latitudes without an ice-breaking support.

“The first stage of the work has been completed. The data collected during the expedition will be processed by specialists of RosGeo in winter-spring period of 2020-2021. Next year, we will conduct a second stage of the surveys involving the exploration of rock bottom along the route. The results will allow us to choose the optimal route of cable laying along the Arctic zone of Russia, as well as to determine the places for construction of the outlets to the shore,” noted Gevork Vermichyan, Director General of Megafon.

In June, MegaFon and RosGeo signed a three-year memorandum of cooperation: RosGeo has become a key partner for the offshore engineering surveys in the Arctic Connect project.

Arctic Connect will connect by the fiber-optic communication line the continents, where live up to 85% of the world population, and provide the fastest signal with minimal latency. The start of the communication line specified with the traffic capability of 200 Tbit/s will assist to cope with the growing volumes of the world data traffic. The sideline connections, built from the base line, will provide the communication services for the consumers of the Arctic and Far East, including the fuel and energy industry enterprises, which will contribute to the socio-economic development of the region.