News / Port celebrates successful year
LERWICK Port Authority has reported a successful year with significantly increased traffic from the offshore oil and gas sector using the harbour’s deep water facilities.
Other business such as the number of passengers going through the port, the volume of cargo handled and the value of fish landed also rose.
Port chief executive Sandra Laurenson said the strong performance last year underpinned positive signs for 2012.
“While all these sectors have their particular challenges, we are cautiously optimistic that offshore-related activity will be sustained, particularly through project support.
“There are already more than 50 cruise ships booked to visit and there has been a good start to the year for white fish landings.
“We continue to invest in the development of the port to maximise current activities and new opportunities – the latter including future decommissioning of offshore installations, both topsides and subsea,” she said.
Figures for 2011, released on Tuesday, show that, compared with 2010:
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there were 5,422 vessel arrivals, up 1.5per cent, with the tonnage of vessels at 11.2 million gross tonnes up 15 per cent;
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the offshore oil and gas industry accounted for 571 arrivals, up 55 per cent, with the 1.98 million gross tonnes a rise of 55 per cent;
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pilotage movements rose 15.5 per cent to 1,212, with 7.1 million gross tonnes of vessels piloted, up 13.6 per cent;
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cargo increased four per cent to 880,099 tonnes, including 99,213 tonnes of oil-related shipments, up 60per cent.
There was also an increase of 1.2 per cent in passengers to 160,467, with ferry passengers up by 1.5 per cent to 129,720, and cruise passengers remaining steady at 30,747.
Total fish landings at 65,659 tonnes were valued at £80.9 million – down 19 per cent on volume and up 18 per cent on value.
Landings of white fish at 9,053 tonnes were valued at £16.8 million – down 5.8 per cent on volume and up seven per cent on value, with the average per tonne rising 13.8 per cent to £1,857.
Pelagic fish was down 20 per cent on tonnage and up 21.6 per cent by value, due to no blue whiting being landed in 2011 and a reduced volume of mackerel landed, offset by very high mackerel prices. Herring landings were up in both tonnage and value.
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