Europe

Nor-Shipping postponed over Omicron fears

The ski goggles can be taken out of the suitcase – next month’s rescheduled Nor-Shipping has just been postponed, with organisers citing spiralling cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

With new restrictions in Norway reintroduced due to the growing number of Covid-19 cases recently, Nor-Shipping director Sidsel Norvik said the time has come to make a “responsible decision” even though current national restrictions allow for large-scale exhibitions.

“In a very fluid pandemic situation, with rapidly rising infection rates here in Norway and elsewhere, we believe the time has come to postpone our January programme and try and create some clarity for our exhibitors and participants,” Norvik said.

The management team is currently working with stakeholders to decide on the optimal way forward, with an announcement on the timing of the next Nor-Shipping expected before the end of this week.

Scheduled to take place from 10-13 January, the biannual exhibition and event programme usually gathers up to 50,000 international decision-makers in Oslo and Lillestrøm, Norway, with around 900 exhibiting companies.

As Covid cases are soaring in many other countries, including the US, the organisers of TPM, the world’s largest liner gathering, which is set to return to the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center at the end of February, are also facing headwinds. Worth reminding, Marintec China in Shanghai, another of the major events in the maritime calendar, also fell victim to the pandemic, and has now been pushed back to late June next year.

Adis Ajdin

Adis is an experienced news reporter with a background in finance, media and education. He has written across the spectrum of offshore energy and ocean industries for many years and is a member of International Federation of Journalists. Previously he had written for Navingo media group titles including Offshore Energy, Subsea World News and Marine Energy.

Comments

  1. Covid cases soaring….but deaths plummeting. Omicron is very mild. But the lunacy continues. Covid had a survival rate of 99.6%. Omicron is much better! But watch as deaths reported of people “with Omicron”, not “of Omicrin”.

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