Russian oil has for some years been ship-to-ship reloaded from smaller to larger tankers in two different fjords in Finnmark County. Now the world’s largest company in oil reloading, FenderCare, is planning to build a new quay terminal for reloading in the North Cape Municipality. The new terminal will be able to accept ships up to Panamax-size, which is the same maximum size which can be accepted in the Panama Canal. The estimated cost for the terminal is almost four million EUR.
The company Kirkenes Transit is at present reloading oil from smaller ice class oil tankers to larger long distance tankers in the same area, but only ship to ship.
North Cape is an important tourist destination as the northernmost place of the European continent. Tourism and cruise boat traffic is consequently one of the most important businesses for the municipality. The Harbor Captain of North Cape believes that if this base is established, the oil reloading activity will become much more dominant and important for the small coastal community than cruise boat traffic.
Fender Care has a Russian oil company, Odd Berg Gruppen, Perpetuum and the German URAG company as partners in the project.
− We have been working on this project since 2005, and have never been closer realizing it than we are today. If we manage to get a cut of the 240 Russian oil tankers which pass the coast of northern Norway every day, it is definitely possible to make this profitable, says Erlend Sunde in Odd Berg Gruppen to newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
