Last year the ban on summertime oil reloading in Bøkfjord outside Kirkenes was appealed by Ship Cargo company. The fjord has a status of a national salmon bay and should be protected against oil industry, the Ministry of Environment concluded.
Now the ban is reversed. Ship Cargo got permission for oil reloading operations in Bøkfjord also in the summertime, the Ministry’spress release reads. Strict environmental considerations should be applied in relation with this decision, the Ministry stresses. Oil reloading can only be conducted at the five points in the bay which have undergone an environmental impact assessment some years ago.
From before, Kirkenes Transit and Ship Cargo companies conducted reloading of Russian oil and gas condensate in Bøkfjord. Kirkenes Transit transferred it’s activity to a fjord at North Cape to comply with the governmental requirements. Now the company, owned by businessman Felix Tschudi, could get back to Kirkenes.
Permission for year-around reloading of oil might mean the start of oil reloading boom in Kirkenes. The city located just few kilometers from the Russian border has long been considered as a possible service base for development of the Barents sea fields, and first of all Shtokman field. It is mostly Russian oil coming from the eastern part of the Barents sea terminals which is to be reloaded at Kirkenes.
As BarentsObserver has reported, more than 15 million tons of oil will be shipped through the Barents Sea in 2009. The northern Russian ports and terminals have the capacity to handle more than 100 million tons of oil per year, as shown in the report funded by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat.
The message on the governmental decision came the same day as Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg arrived to Kirkenes. Originally, Mr. Stoltenberg was to discuss the mining industry, but now it looks like the oil reloading issues will be addressed as well.