In 2009, the Bremen-based Beluga Group claimed they were the first Western company to attempt to cross the Northern Sea Route for shipping without assistance from icebreakers, cutting 4000 nautical miles off the journey between Ulsan, Korea and Rotterdam. The voyage was widely covered and sometimes incorrectly said to be the first time that non-Russian ships made the transit. In 1997, a Finnish oil tanker, "Uikku", sailed the length of the Northern Sea Route from Murmansk to the Bering Strait, becoming the first Western ship to complete the voyage.