Tourists gush about first-ever ‘rig-spotting’ cruise of North Sea oilfields
120 curious souls, mostly Norwegian, board oilfield services vessel for four-day tour, paying up to HK$27,000 each for the voyage to see facilities that have generated so much wealth for Norway
Bored with palm-fringed beaches and turquoise seas? Then the gigantic oil platforms of the North Sea beckon. The first ever “rig-spotting” cruise just ended off the coast of Norway, and those on board the four-day trip said it was jaw-dropping.
“I couldn’t believe that these big buildings could be made,” said passenger Kari Somme, 86, after seeing Statoil’s Troll A platform – the heaviest structure ever moved by mankind – towering 200 metres above the surface of the sea.
“It’s just wonderful, just wonderful. I was so excited because I didn’t know much about it. So when I came here and we went from rig to rig, or platform to platform, I was amazed,” she said.
The group of 120 tourists, all Norwegians except for a German and a Swedish couple, paid between 6,000 and 30,000 crowns (HK$5,400-HK$27,000) for four days on board the hi- tech offshore vessel Edda Fides.
The trip was organised by Edda Accommodation, a firm that provides housing for oil workers working offshore. It was looking for new ways to drum up business: oil firms are cutting costs to cope with a 60-per cent drop in the price of oil since mid-2014.