Among them is the company Alexela, which wants its terminal outside Gulen, southern Norway, to become a transit terminal for oil from Murmansk. The company now has requested permission from the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority to handle 2,5 million tons per year, newspaper Bergens Tidende reports.
The company is not the first. Several other companies seek stakes in the Russian export shipping of oil through Arctic waters. From before, the Kirkenes Transit is operating a floating terminal outside Honningsvåg, northern Norway. That is believed to handle primarily oil from Lukoil.
As reported by BarentsObserver, the company ShipCargo has permission for limited reloading of oil near Kirkenes.
Meanwhile, the amount of Russian oil shipped through Arctic waters increase. A new report from AkvaPlan Niva and the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, shows that the amount of Russian oil exported through the north might by 2015 increase to more than 100 million tons. In 2008, the amount of oil shipped in the area was 15 million tons, the report authors maintain.
Russian companies increasingly see the Arctic as a key export route for oil. Lukoil in 2008 opened its Varandey terminal on the Pechora Sea coast which will have an annual capacity of 12 million tons. That will all be exported through the Barents Sea.
