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Arctic visit blowing in the wind for North East engineers

A North East trade visit to the Arctic has been cancelled as the region’s flights continue to be disrupted by a volcanic ash cloud.

The planned visit by a group of North East engineering firms –who were hoping to develop more ties with oil and gas players with operations in the Arctic - has been put on hold.

Although restrictions on flights from Newcastle International Airport are expected to gradually be lifted today, the ban may have already dealt a blow to the regional economy.

Mike Pedersen, head of the Norwegian Collaboration Centre (NCC) and representative of NOF Energy for the planned visit, yesterday said: “I should have been in the Artic today with six other companies from the region.

“We were taking a tour as there’s lots of potential business for the region’s businesses in that area. We’ve had to cancel everything.

“There’s a massive amount of air traffic between Norway and North East within the oil, gas and energy sector and a disruption like this could have profound effects.”

Meanwhile, a hastily arranged North Sea ferry brought travellers back to the North East on Sunday night.

A Norwegian travel agency contacted the Port of Tyne to find out if it could send a specially chartered ship from Stavanger, carrying 49 passengers.

Normally, such an operation takes about 18 weeks to organise, but the journey was arranged in just 18 hours, adding fuel to the debate of whether the old ferry crossing between the North East and Norway should be reinstated.

Mr. Pederson added: “There’s been lots of discussion between Bergen and Newcastle about the ferry. Maybe it needs something like this volcano to kick start it again.

“The North East has hundreds of engineers working in Stavanger working in the oil and gas business. It’s vital we have a link to keep our engineers mobile, even if it takes a whole night of travel.”

The last regular ferry crossing from the North East to Norway was scrapped by DFDS in 2008, partly due to competition from the airlines, which now find their services grounded.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .