Pete Bevington

1 December, 2007

THE RISING cost of fuel has forced a Shetland/Norwegian consortium of public and private interests to scrap their immediate plans for a passenger ferry between Norway's west coast and the UK mainland in favour of a freight service.

This summer the NORSHUKON Link partners, who include Shetland transport partnership ZetTrans, invited five ship operators to tender for the service, described as the "motorway of the sea".

Yesterday the group announced that after detailed evaluation of submissions they had been forced to re-advertise the contract due to "rapidly escalating fuel costs and vessel charter rates".

Next week they will be placing a new advert in the Official Journal of the European Union seeking new companies to tender for a freight ro-ro service, possibly with a reduced passenger and car capacity.

The NORSHUKON project was set up by Møregruppen AS, a group of private firms and local authorities based around the oil and fishing port of Kristiansund, north of Bergen.

The Norwegians hoped to reduce their transport costs by moving freight heading for northern Europe from the road to the sea, connecting through a UK port like Rosyth or Newcastle.

ZetTrans jumped on board the plan after losing their existing ferry link with Norway when the Faroese operator Smyril Line withdrew Lerwick from their sailing schedule.

ZetTrans manager Ken Duerden said yesterday (Friday): "During the tender process a few things have changed quite significantly, not least fuel prices, and passenger ships tend to burn more fuel than freight ships."

He added that there was a shortage of the type of passenger/freight vessels they had been looking for on the route, which was also pushing up costs.

"A number of the operators we have been talking to have been saying they believe the service could be more sustainable if we start off with a freight service and work up to carrying passengers as the market develops," he explained.

Mr Duerden said they wanted to take their time to make sure they got this right, and they were tying the tendering exercise in with two European funding programmes, Marco Polo and the TEN-T schemes.

The deadline for expressions of interest will be in mid January with full bids in by late February so an operator can be appointed some time in the spring. However, the service is not expected to be up and running until summer 2009.

He stressed that the long term aim was to have a passenger and freight service which would help boost tourism between Norway, Shetland and the UK mainland.

Møregruppen and Shetland Development Trust joint funded the £100,000 feasibility study into the the link. The partners may need to find more money to cover the cost of re-advertising the contract.