South Korea’s PanStar Acro returned to Busan on Sunday after completing the country’s first container ship round trip through the Northern Sea Route, a 50-day voyage intended to test the commercial potential of Arctic shipping between Asia and Europe. The vessel departed on Aug. 22, carrying 737 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of export cargo, before calling at ports in Britain, the Netherlands and Poland.

However, the ship returned with 1,743 TEUs of empty containers and no loaded import cargo, according to Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries documents obtainedby opposition lawmaker Kang Seung-gyu. The voyage received about $2.3 million (3