Due to the reluctance of the Directorate for Emergency Situations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to issue a formal consent to supply that ship with fuel directly from tankers while it is docked on the operational coast in the part of the port of Bar, the cruiser "Norwegian Spirit" stopped loading in Montenegro last weekend and left the country. Thus, Montenegro and a part of its economy lost the opportunity to earn between five and six million euros from that ship alone, until April, the month when it was originally planned for the "Norwegian Spirit" to stay in Montenegro.
"Norwegian Spirit", a ship of 75.904 gross tons, belongs to the American-Norwegian company Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) and sailed into Bar on November 24, arriving from the Italian port of Brindisi. The 269-meter-long and 32,3-meter-wide cruiser, on which there were 135 crew members at the time, moored in Bar at one of the jetties used by the "Port of Adria" company.
The intention of the NCL company was to keep the ship at least until April in a status of negotiation in a condition that the ship can be returned to regular commercial use very soon because the world cruise industry has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, so most of the passenger ship fleet for circular tourist cruises has therefore been put out of use and tied up in various world ports.
"Norwegian Spirit" was the first cruise ship that came to Montenegro to be put into storage, which was also a good opportunity for the state, as well as numerous business entities involved in the chain of providing services to cruisers, to earn at least some money in the situation when Montenegro lost literally the entire last year's nautical season due to covid.
"I don't know what else to tell you except that someone in the state administration is really not normal when they do things like this in a situation where everything in cruising and yachting has literally stopped due to the coronavirus and when almost none of those involved in the chain of providing services to cruisers and yachts , he hasn't earned anything for months. To lose such an opportunity to make money from a ship that just stands tied up in the port and whose owners without any problems, immediately and regularly, pay all invoices for the services provided to the ship, pay not small taxes to the state authorities and thus bring foreign, fresh money into the Montenegrin economy is absolutely reprehensible, but also responsible for abuse of official position, negligent performance of official duty and causing direct economic damage to the state", one of the businessmen from Bar, who in the previous month and a half had the opportunity to provide services to "Norwegian Spirit ", earn decent sums.
From well-informed circles, "Vijesti" was told that the owner of the ship, the company NCL, from November 24 to Saturday, January 9, when their ship sailed from Bar, left at least one million euros in Montenegro, paying various fees to the Maritime Safety Administration and port management, the Port of Adria company, providers of pilotage and ship towing services, agents, suppliers, traders, carriers, but also other state companies such as the Airport of Montenegro.
Thanks to the stay of the "Norwegian Spirit" in the past period, ACG received several special charter flights that transferred several hundred seafarers and so-called white personnel, who, as crew members, boarded this cruise ship in Bar. During the ship's stay in Montenegro, all of them stayed exclusively on it, without going ashore, and were transferred from the airport to the ship under special conditions according to the protocols adopted for such activities during the pandemic.
The daily fuel consumption on "Norwegian Spirit" is 35 tons, which means that on this basis alone, the ship in Montenegro would spend at least several million euros during the coming months. Namely, in the port of Bar there is no so-called shore power connection - the possibility to connect the cruiser to the shore power grid, so all the ship's needs for electricity are met by the operation of its diesel generators.
Therefore, the ship's captain, owner and agent requested that he approve with "Norwegian Spirit" to buy fuel from Jugopetrol and to load it directly from the tanker of that company, while he is in port. The existing petroleum installation for refueling ships (bunker) of Jugopetol in Bar is completely unsuitable for the safe stay on it of a ship the size of the "Norwegian Spirit", because this would imply that the cruiser of almost 270 meters in length would have to be tied up to a pier of only 40 -about meters and remain on it at the mercy of the wind for several days until it fills its tanks "to the brim", because the maximum fuel flow on that installation is only 700 liters per minute, which is very little and slow for such large ships.
"Taking into account the economic importance of the ship's stay, the Ministry of Finance, through State Secretary Rad Milošević, did everything in their power to approve the supply of 'Norwegian Spirrit' with fuel to the Port of Adria, directly from the tankers, the Ministry of Finance headed by Minister Milojko Spajić did everything on his part to overcome all administrative and formal obstacles for such a job, the Customs Administration did the same, but in the end everything was ruined by the unwillingness of the Directorate for Emergency Situations to formally give consent to this kind of supply of fuel to the ship. "Therefore, the cruiser, having taken just enough fuel at Jugopetrol's bunker installation to reach Augusta, left Montenegro on Saturday afternoon", said a well-informed interlocutor of "Vijesti" who insisted on anonymity.
The company "Allegra Montenero" from Bar, which is the port agent of the NCL company in Montenegro, as well as the shipping company itself, were not ready to officially comment on anything. Jugopetrol told "Vijesti" that the company did not refuse the request to supply "Norwegian Spirit" with fuel, but also that it "informed the ship's agent that according to the Law on the Transportation of Dangerous Goods, refueling of ships in the port of Bar can only be carried out at certain places which have been approved by the competent state authorities in accordance with technical regulations".
"The place where the ship was tied up, the operational shore of Port of Adria AD, is not one of the approved places. In the correspondence between the MUP and the ship's agent on January 4, 2021, the Ministry repeated the aforementioned provisions of the Law," said the company, adding that the next day, on its own bunker berth, they loaded 430 cubic fuel. However, Jugopetrol did not directly answer the question of whether they informed the head office of their owner, the company "Hellenic Petroleum" in Athens, about this case and the missed opportunity to sell fuel worth several million euros to this one client alone.
"As already mentioned, according to the Law, any refueling procedure can only take place at certain places within the Port that have been approved by the competent state authorities," explained Jugopetrol.
The company points out that they are aware of the technical limitations of their connection for bunkering ships in Bar, "as well as the limitations related to the supply of ships with tank cars".
"Also, the flow rate of 700 lit/min, which is considered disputed here, is significantly higher than the flow rate that can be achieved during the aforementioned supply by car tankers", Jugopetrol points out, overlooking, however, that in the case of a ship the size of the "Norwegian Spirit" it is primarily that in a maritime sense, it is safe during the fuel loading operation, and that therefore the permanent mooring where the ship was in the Port of Adria is much more suitable for it than the small mooring at the bunker station of Jugopetrol, on the inner side of the breakwater of the port of Bar.
The Directorate of Emergencies, however, has previously regularly approved similar refueling of other ships, not only at the piers of the Port of Bar. Thus, ships of the Croatian Navy, as well as ships of the navies of NATO countries that occasionally came to visit, loaded fuel from tankers to the mooring in Bar several times, and from the tankers, fuel was loaded directly into some of the mega and superyachts in Porto Montenegro, although there also there is an adequately equipped and configured permanent bunker berth.
From the Directorate headed by Mirsad Mulić (DPS), "Vijesti" did not receive answers to the questions why they did not give consent to supply "Norwegian Spirit" with fuel from tankers when they had already done so in numerous other cases, whether they are aware of the magnitude of the economic damage which they caused both to the state and to numerous business entities that cooperated with the owner of that ship while he was staying in Bar, and who will be held responsible for that.
Companies were left without hundreds of thousands of euros from orders
"Everyone benefited from the ship's stay, and not small ones. For example, Norwegian Spirit paid over 25 euros for water alone. The coca-bearing farm in Martinići could not believe it when the other day they received an order from of that ship for the delivery of 60.000 pieces of eggs, because such eggs are sold in our country only during Easter.
Only in 'Volij' for the vegetables, fruit and other food products he bought, 'Norwegian Spirit' left several hundred thousand euros. When at the end of December, one night due to a storm, tugboats had to be hired to so-called by boxing, they additionally secure the ship and keep it on a safe connection in the port, just for about 10 hours of work by tugboats 'Tito' and 'Rumija', the ship paid 30.000 euros.
And all that is now lost because as a country we were not able to meet the demand of the ship's captain and the company to provide the fuel supply to the Norwegian Spirit, which of course they also pay immediately and without question.
As a result, the ship was forced to leave Montenegro and last weekend it sailed for the port of Augusta in Sicily, and we are left to accumulate losses and cry for the income that we could have made without much effort, literally on our doorstep, that 'Norwegian Spirit "remained in Bar until April, as was probably planned, that is, that NCL had brought another of its cruisers here, which they were also very interested in," said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
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