Fremveksten av offshoreskipsfarten på Vestlandet 1970-2010

This master thesis examines how the offshore shipping in the western part of Norway has developed from 1970 to 2010. Since the offshore shipping is contained by many different shipowning actors. Of this reason the thesis will explain how the actors in the offshore shipping made it through the period within the offshoremarket. The thesis will also investigate how the development in the four maritime regions that the western part consists of. This will be explained through the segments that the offshore shipping consists of. The offshore shipping is a part of the offshore sector, and is also a kind of shipping that does different kind of services for the oil industry and more often for wind warm projects in the last decade. After the oil discovery in December 1969 several actors from the shipping business entered the offshore shipping. Between 1970 and 2010 the development in this shipping branch has been tremendous. Maybe the most interesting change that happened in the Norwegian offshore shipping was the change in the geographical structure. From being based in different parts of Norway, the offshore shipping became strongly based in the Western Part of the country. In the last decade, from 2000 to 2010 the offshore shipping in the western part has experienced an enormous expansion, both in size and territory, where the actors developed their businesses in foreign offshoremarkets around the globe. Despite the significant growth and importance the offshore shipping have been for the norwegian shipping, it have been little attention in the historical research litterature. By this reason there have been big opportunities to fill out the holes in the historical science of this topic