In Bergen you can practically taste the depression in the offshore industry. The number of laid up OSVs has helped nudge local pollution levels in Norway’s second city to record highs, pushing local councillors to urge shipowners to moor their vessels elsewhere.
State broadcaster NRK reports that at least one company has taken heed of the city council’s concerns. DOF Management this week moved one of its vessels out of the harbour to an alternative layup destination. DOF now has just one vessel moored in Bergen, and it is connected to shoreside power, Bergen being one of very few Norwegian ports to offer ships the option of electricity from onshore.
Norway’s OSV community has been among the hardest hit by the decline in global oil prices.
The resulting pollution in Bergen is on a level never experienced before. The city’s backdrop of mountains means pollution tends to hang in the air often, especially when there is little wind. The pollution is so bad at the moment that the municipality has closed the city centre for half of motorists for a couple of days from Wednesday to Friday.
This is just another action by the local authorities put the blame on everyone but one of the main reasons.. first it was because of traffic in the city centre.. a few years ago it was due to studded tires , last year it’s due to people driving diesel cars (even though the government encouraged people to go out and buy new diesel cars, a few years back; ‘as they used less fuel’. There’s now been a U-turn on that one) .. Now it’s the offshore vessels turn…to play scapegoat.. All the while they never mention that Bergen and Norway is in the middle of winter, and a cold spell at that, and at this momment every home that can, in town is using its fire place to burn wood to keep warm.. more than they normally would.. They don’t dare ban that. Still there’s a fair few quays out in the districts that would be glad of the money a laid up vessel could offer them.. PSVs e.t.c. may not help, but they are not the only reason.