SSG No 20 - Shipgaz

norway’s only iron ore port, narvik, handles
around 16 million tons per year.
after Rotterdam. Norway’s only iron ore
port, Narvik, handles around 16 million
tons per year, most of it exports from the
Swedish mines at Kiruna. Third on the
list, Karmsund, handles around 14 million
tons, a lot of it Hydro’s aluminum products
from their works at Karmøy. Number
five on the list, Tønsberg, needs an explanatory
note, as the port area includes Esso’s
Slagen Refinery.
Container capacity increases
Norwegian ports handled 152,250 TEUs,
carrying 1.05 million tons during the first
quarter of 2007, up from 149,567 TEUs,
carrying 1.02 million tons in the first quarter
of 2006. Most of the Norwegian container
capacity is concentrated around the
Oslo Fjord with Oslo as the country’s leading
container port with 31 per cent of the
traffic. Other important container ports
in the Oslo Fjord area are Moss, Larvik,
Kristiansand, Grenland and Borg, all with
between 11,000 and 15,000 TEUs during
the first quarter of the year.
The offshore bases
Bases servicing the offshore industry are not
commercial ports in the traditional sense.
Nevertheless these bases, dotted along the
Norwegian coast from Stavanger to Hammerfest,
provide the umbilical cord by
which the platforms and rig offshore are
connected to shore based facilities. According
to official Norwegian statistics there are
12 companies operating supply bases in Norway,
some operating more than one base.
Around 600 people work in these operating
companies, which has a yearly turnover of
just under NOK one billion. The ten most
important offshore supply bases in Norway
are Coast Center Base, Vestbase, Fjord Base,
Risavika/Tananger, Sola Havn, Dusavik,
Stordbase, Mongstadbase, Helgelandsbase
and Polarbase. We once defined an offshore
base as a catalyst of all the different players
that provide the services the oil companies
NORWAY’S lARGEST PORTS, TURNOVER
(1,000 t) 2003 2004 2005 2006 1st Qt 2007
Bergen 76,405 75,635 73,874 67,864 16,284
Narvik 14,145 15,568 15,967 16,074 3,940
Karmsund 13,505 13,360 14,093 14,085 3,790
Grenland 9,773 9,656 9,805 10,155 2,769
Tønsberg 10,520 10,520 9,886 11,491 2,708
Oslo 6,021 6,141 5,978 6,410 1,614
Molde & Romsdal 157 136 203 6,148 1,585
Kristiansund & Nordmøre 1,806 4,546 5,004 5,910 1,237
Mo i Rana 2,983 3,648 3,488 3,428 921
Drammen 2,211 2,823 3,159 2,940 910
Borg 3,538 3,476 3,015 2,951 645
Source: Statistics Norway
require – services which include base organisation,
installation service, supply vessel
operation, helicopter service and a multitude
of suppliers providing everything from
food to steel piping.
Sucked into politics
Most Norwegian ports are municipal and
as such sucked into local politics. The Port
and Seaways Act of 1984 states clearly that
ports are to retain financial autonomy and
be self-financing. As such the ports ought
to be independent. They are not, mainly
because they work under the under the
keen eye of of the Ministry of Fisheries and
Coastal Affairs. This structure has often prevented
reform. However, changes in modern
logistics, environmental demands and a
more progressive transport policy has led to
a revision of the present Port and Seaways
Act of 1984. The presumption is that a proposal
will be put before the Norwegian parliament
(Stortinget) before the end of this
year. The present act needs modernising to
include more recent policy measures.
National Transport Plan
In 2003 a National Transport Plan (NTP)
for the period 2006 to 2015 was adopted
to integrate all modes of transport into one
national plan. One central objective is to
enforce intermodality in the transport sector
and to shift more cargo from land to
sea. So far the measures embedded in the
NTP have not been carried out successfully.
Rather, domestic sea transport continues
to lose out, particularly to road transport.
With the high seaways fees sea transport is
for all intent and purposes subsidising road
transport. The NTP does not address this
problem and, until it does, the balance will
not be redressed. A revised NTP for the
period 2010 to 2019 is unlikely to grapple
PORTs & MaRITIME lOGIsTICs
NORWAY’S TEN lARGEST
CONTAINER PORTS
(TEU turnover) 1st Qt 2007
Oslo 46,903
Moss 14,605
Larvik 11,540
Kristiansand 11,390
Grenland 11,317
Ålesund 9,455
Bodø 8,659
Borg 7,299
Bergen 6,208
Stavanger 5,289
Source: Statistics Norway
with the politically thorny balance between
the sea and land modes of transport. All
they have done so far is to reclassify ports
into national ports and other ports. The
national ports are supposed to be intermodal,
the other ports are either less efficient
or do otherwise not qualify according to
the European Union. The notion is that
Norwegian ports by and large are too small
to be a fully integrated link in intermodality,
i.e. the transport chain with two or
more modes of transport involved.
Too many ports
When King Eystein ordered a breakwater
built at Agdenes in the thirteenth century
he started what can only be termed a prolific
port building program. We noted earlier
that around 300 communities are bordering
the sea. They all have their own port,
in some cases fishing ports and they are
open for business. The abundance of port
facilities, but too little cargo to go around,
is an inherent of all Norwegian ports. But
too reduce the number of ports is politically
very difficult, if not impossible.
petter arentz
sCanDInavIan sHIPPInG GaZETTE • OCTOBER 26, 2007 61