Color Line will continue to favour Kiel as a base following the signing today of a new long-term contract with the port.

 With their signatures, Color Line CEO Trond Kleivdal and the Managing Director of the Port of Kiel Dirk Claus clinched a further ten years of co-operation. Claus said: “Color Line’s liner service between Kiel and Oslo is an exemplary success story. We are proud to be the partners of this shipping company”.

He added: “even after 15 years of operation, Kiel’s Norwegenkai Terminal used by the ships of the Color Line remains among the top facilities in the whole of northern Europe. We offer a first-class terminal in an attractive inner-city location with the best-possible rail and road links”.

The terminal was inaugurated in 1997 by Norway’s Queen Sonja, wife of King Harald. Its quayside was upgraded in 2004 and expanded in 2012 to prepare the facility for the demands of today’s ships. To date the port, supported by the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, has invested a total of more than 60 million Euros in the facility.

“The Norwegenkai Terminal now has all the infrastructure required for further growth in both the passenger and cargo transport sectors,” said Claus.

Ferry traffic between Kiel and Oslo began in 1961 and has existed for more 50 years.

Today the biggest Baltic ferry ships currently in operation, the Color Fantasy and Color Magic, serve on the route between Kiel and Oslo – the only daily ferry link between Germany and Norway. The two sister ships are each of more than 75,000 tons carry up to 2,700 passengers and offer more than 1,200 lane metres of space for ro-ro transport. Last year they carried 1.1 million passengers and more than 100,000 trucks, trailers, buses and private cars.