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Klaksvík’s Trump Card Terminal |
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Archives -
2007 Archive
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Written by B. Tyril
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Tuesday, 22 May 2007 |
A deepwater terminal that affords large trawlers, container ships and cruise liners superior maneuverability — together with a giant underwater tunnel that links the town to the rest of the country — is a key ingredient in Klaksvík’s bid as the best port in the Faroes.
Long established as the /Faroes’ top whitefish port, Klaksvík has lately taken a giant leap to strengthen its harbor infrastructure, boasting a new deepwater terminal with a large container area and a new cold storage facility underway. Extensive road network developments were completed during 2006 — notably a giant underwater tunnel to link the town to the so-called Main Area that includes the capital of Tórshavn — and the port is repositioning itself as a viable alternative for large ships entering the Faroes.
No wonder the fixed link and new terminal are seen by local authorities and business people as a great opportunity for growth.
Located at Ánir to the north of town, Klaksvík’s new cargo terminal was opened in 2005 and subsequently equipped with a ro-ro (roll-on/roll-off) ramp, allowing ships like the superferry Norröna to dock.
As a case in point, the Port of Klaksvík recently signed a contract with the Norröna’s owner Smyril Line on the use of Ánir as an alternative terminal for the ferry.
Along the entire length of the 200m Ánir terminal the quayside depth is 12.5 meters. Adjacent to the terminal there’s a 30,000m2 open storage area, next to which a cold storage facility is being constructed.
Apart from high water depths, what could be the new terminal’s greatest advantage has to do with its spacious natural surroundings — offering superb maneuverability, for one thing; for another, shelter from all weather conditions.
“At Ánir, there’s no such thing as a bad wind direction,” says harbor officer Meinhard Petersen. As a trained captain with decades of experience at sea, Mr Petersen has expert knowledge of this subject.
“Captains I have spoken to say this is the best harbor in the Faroes,” he adds.
“It’s easy to enter and easy to leave — you don’t need a tug here, unlike so many other places, which suits us fine because it makes operations more simple and less time consuming. Well, the captain of one of the Icelandic container ships told me this harbor should be used as a model for others and I’m quite sure he meant every word; because I know this area and I know many harbors from my earlier job.”
Large cold store: The terminal’s large open storage area represents a key advantage in terms of effective loading and unloading.
“Experience shows that a couple of thousand tonnes of marine products can be transferred from a factory trawler to a container ship in an amazingly short time by unloading the trawler’s cargo into a hundred 20-foot containers on the terminal area then lifting the containers on board the container ship. Such processes are smooth here.”
According to the port authority, a growing number of cruise liners is expected to call at the Port of Klaksvík in the years ahead. In this connection, a few more investments are in the cards.
“This terminal is a success and I only wish we’d built it earlier,” says Atli Justinussen, chairman of the Klaksvík Port Authority’s board of directors. “In my view we should have taken a bolder approach from the start — we should perhaps have considered making the terminal 400 instead of 200 meters. That way we could have two ships docking at the time instead of one. But of course, it’s a question of financial priorities and funds are never unlimited… Yet I do believe it would be worth it.”
Few will doubt that the recent development of the 6.3km Klaksvík-Leirvík underwater tunnel is having a major impact on the town of Klaksvík and its economy. The fixed link has entailed other related developments, such as a new national road system which will lead from the tunnel’s mouth through a mountain area above town northward to the Ánir terminal, enabling heavy road traffic to flow from the terminal through the tunnel to destinations across the country. “You can’t tell at this point just what the effect of this whole thing is going to be,” Mr Justinussen adds.
What has materialized, so far, includes a new retail shopping area close to the tunnel’s mouth, and a series of mergers and acquisitions as Klaksvík is becoming increasingly integrated with parts of Eysturoy — and there’s a new industrial zone by the Ánir terminal with a large cold store set to open for business this year.
Link to pdf presentation...
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