HELSINKI, March 22 (Xinhua) -- The construction of the planned Arctic data cable connecting Asia and Europe via Finland appears to be delayed, media reports said here on Friday.
The majority state-owned Cinia Ltd. that implements Arctic Connect has confirmed to Xinhua earlier media reports that the project's completion date cannot be specified.
Anne Berner, the Finnish minister of transport and communication, said last August that the 10,500-km data cable via the Northeast Passage was to be built between 2019 and 2022.
The Finnish business weekly Talouselama quoted Cinia CEO Ari-Jussi Knaapila on Friday as saying that he "no longer wants to estimate when the cable would be ready."
Cinia started laying cables in 2015 at the request of the Finnish government.
Knaapila told Talouselama that the company has not yet been able to find a commercial partner in Russia. "We have several negotiations ongoing and one of them has been in a good phase for some months. But nothing that we can publish now," Knaapila said.
The Northeast Passage cable would reduce data transmission delay between Europe and Asia data by around 40 percent (from 250 milliseconds to 150 milliseconds). Knaapila underlined though that for security reasons it is more important to build an alternative data route than to make connection faster.
Currently, the best part of data traffic between Asia and Europe goes through cables traversing the Suez Canal. "Some five years ago, three of the four cables were damaged by a dropped anchor," he recalled. It caused major, albeit temporary, problems.
The Arctic Connect project is estimated to cost between 600 million and 900 million euros (677 million - 1 billion U.S. dollars). Knaapila told Talouselama he expects the project's final ownership structure to be versatile.
Knaapila said financing of the cable project would not be a problem. Work would take off only when the main customers have been confirmed.
Cinia is already operating a direct cable link between Finland and Germany. Known as C-Lion1, the 1,173-km submarine cable became operational in 2016.
The Finnish state owns 77.5 percent of Cinia. The other owners are the insurance company Ilmarinen and the OP Financial Group.
