Oslo  - High metal prices have fuelled interest in breaking up a Russian cruiser that sank off northern Norway in 2004, reports said Tuesday.

"We have been approached by some eight, nine serious Norwegian and foreign companies that want to break up the ship," Kjetil Aasebo of the Norwegian Coastal Administration told the Aftenposten newspaper.

The Coastal Administration has been put in charge of getting rid of the wreck, and hopes to have selected a bidder by December with the aim of removing the ship by next summer.

Steel prices have risen from 200 to 800 euros (285 to 1,140 dollars) per ton since 2002 although scrap metal fetches slightly lower prices.

The 211-metre-long Murmansk ran aground and sank in December 1994 as it was being towed to India to be broken up.

The Norwegian government has also commissioned studies to establish if the wreck is leaking toxic waste into the sea near the small coastal settlement of Sorvaer in Finnmark, northern Norway. (dpa)