– The vessel “Sayan Polaris” sailed under the Russian flag until recently. It cannot therefore call at Stavanger or other ports on mainland Norway without permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Guri Solberg, communications adviser in the ministry, wrote this in an e-mail to Dagbladet on Thursday evening.
On Friday afternoon, however, the counter-message came. Sayan Polaris has been granted an exemption from the port ban, and is allowed to dock in Stavanger this weekend.
The vessel is on Friday afternoon off the coast at Bergen, heading south.
Maritime chief in the Port of Stavanger region, Dag Matre, says that they received a request for a port call from the vessel on Monday. They forwarded this to the Coastal Agency on Tuesday, and have, among other things, been in contact with the border police regarding the matter.
On Thursday, it became clear that the vessel wanted to go to another port in the Stavanger region.
Zakharova reaches out to Norway
The management company OSM Maritime is a subcontractor for Sayan Polaris. General manager of OSM Offshore, Morten Sejrup, tells Dagbladet that the owner of the vessel does not want to comment on the matter.
The company Sayan Polaris has its head offices in Malta.
Received application on Thursday
The reason why “Sayan Polaris” is covered by the sanctions, despite the fact that they now sail under the Maltese flag, is that all ships that sailed under the Russian flag after 24 February 2022 are covered by the port ban in the Ukraine regulations.
– This is because the ban on granting access to ports on mainland Norway applies to both Russian vessels and vessels that have changed their Russian flag after 24 February 2022, explains the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Norway rejects Russia
According to Marine Traffic, the vessel had the Russian flag until 4 January 2023.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received an application for exemption from the ban on port calls for the vessel on Thursday. The application applies to calls to Stavanger on 14 January.
– As the application has just been received, we do not have any more information about when a response to the application will be sent, said the ministry on Thursday evening.
Sailed from Murmansk
Dagbladet knows that “Sayan Polaris” sailed from Murmansk to Longyearbyen on 26 December 2022. They arrived on Svalbard island on 1 January.
Warns about Russian games
In November, the Norwegian authorities applied for a port of call in Kirkenes, where they wanted, among other things, to change flags.
They had their application rejected and later went to Longyearbyen – where the port ban does not apply, before they went south with Stavanger as their destination.
According to Svalbardposten, which mentioned the visit of the then Russian supply ship, it was in the city to change the flag from Russian to Maltese.
– This is a way to get the ship out of Russian registration, which has been initiated by the owners of the ship, Mikael Johansson of the logistics company Pole Position told the newspaper.
Russia with Svalbard accusations
He stated that they would also have to repaint to change the name of the ship and get a new crew.
– The Russians have really only delivered the ship here, Johansson said.
Supposed to have been used by Gazprom
Dag Matre in the Stavanger region Havn says that the request to the ship is in connection with a crew change and provisioning in Stavanger.
“Sayan Polaris” first sailed under the Norwegian flag with the name Troms Polaris, before in 2019 it functioned as a supply ship in Russia under a so-called “bareboat registration”, with the Russian flag. Russian Gazprom is reportedly among those who have used the ship for their service, writes Offshore Magazine in a press release from 2019.
