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RO RO Tough times on the North Sea


Stena Line is close to completing its fleet modernisation programme on its UK North Sea routes with new ships in place on the Harwich Hook of Holland and Harwich/ Rotterdam routes and introduction of the Stena Transporter on the Killingholm-Hook of Holland route on 28 April. Now it only remains for her sister ship, the Stena Transit – also with a capacity of 260 units and 300 drivers – to be completed in Korea in October and join her in early November.


This should be cause for celebration, but there is a fly in the ointment, says director of North Sea operations, Pim de Lange. “The only thing we need now is for the market to increase.”


The new ships were ordered back in 2006/07 “when the world looked completely different.” The economy and the ferry market were still growing and no one had heard the term ‘toxic debt’ or ‘sub-


Maritime Organisation passed the new rules at a conference back in 2004, it caused little comment, but now people are beginning to wake up to the implications.


prime lending’. However, the new ships will


offer economies of scale when traffic growth returns. “They have the same fuel consumption, although maintenance and crew costs are a little bit more,” explains Pim de Lange. However, like


all other ferry


operators he is worried about the impact of new legislation requiring ferries to burn low-sulphur fuel in controlled emission zones, scheduled to come into force on 1 January 2015. “It has taken everyone in the ferry industry in surprise,” he said, echoing the statements by delegates to the Coastlink conference in mid-June. When the International


“If it goes through, it will cause a lot of problems, especially for those ferries competing with tunnels or bridges,” de Lange argues. There is a danger that it will lead to a shift from water to road transport, and he is not convinced by Brussels and national government assurances that they will raise truck taxes to compensate. Meanwhile he is lobbying for a postponement until about 2020. Nor is there any immediate prospect of a technical solution. No one has yet come up with an


exhaust ‘scrubber’ system


to remove noxious gases from marine engine exhausts, so ships operating in emission control areas may have no option but to use more expensive sulphur free fuel. (Truck engineers, by contrast


have been working for several years on technology that removes many of the worst pollutants from exhausts but there is as yet no equivalent for marine engines.) All this is happening against the background of a very soft freight market on the North Sea and increasing competition. “The UK economy is still very weak, the Pound is low against the Euro and there is no consumer confidence, so people are buying less. That translates into less traffic for our customers too,” points out de Lange. Actually, the picture is more complicated. Accompanied traffic is up, but unaccompanied is down, he continues. There is more traffic from Eastern Europe. Much of this, though not all, has been captured by Eurotunnel, which has mounted an aggressive marketing campaign to win back market share after the fire that partially shut down the operation, says de Lange. At


Privatisation with a public conscience?


At a public meeting to discuss plans for a Port of Dover Community Trust (PDCT) on 21 June, port management suggested an upfront payment of £10m into the trust and a £20m stake in the privatised port. A dividend guaranteed


at £1m a year was


suggested, although the port said it was willing to submit alternatives to the Secretary of State. While at least two major airports – Manchester and Luton – already have community trusts, the Port of Dover believes its plans are unique in its sector.


The trustees would be independent, and would have the power to invest in schemes such as education grants, improvements to the public realm or funding for start-up businesses, for example.


Chief executive Bob Goldfield stressed that the plans for PDCT had always been part of the port’s privatisation plans, though some of the more cynical local residents suggested that the port was only giving it a high profile since the Government published its new criteria calling for more community


involvement in privatised trust ports. Bob Goldfield however argued that the plans aimed to retain some of the essence of a trust port, even after privatisation.


Another aggrieved local resident suggested that, with plans for redeveloping the partly disused Western Docks for Terminal 2 still pending, the port could at least tidy the area up as it had become an eyesore. Director of port development Mike Krayenbrink told the meeting he would look into it.


the same time, he says, the tunnel has been insulated from the fuel price increases that have hit the ferry operators “because it uses subsidised French nuclear power”. The result, he adds, is that it can be cheaper to for east European hauliers to operate through the tunnel with two drivers than to use unaccompanied ferries across the North Sea.


The pain has been felt most on Stena’s Rotterdam routes,


ISSUE 4 2011


which are dominated by unaccompanied traffic. The other routes are doing about the same amount of business as last year, although operating costs have markedly increased, so profits are being squeezed even here. “It’s not a nice situation,” concludes de Lange. “With fuel prices increasing seemingly every week, if the situation doesn’t change there will have to be some rationalisation on the North Sea.”


ACL goes on tour in Europe


Transatlantic ro-ro and container line ACL is becoming increasingly involved in the intra-European short-sea market, UK managing director Ian Higby told the Coastlink conference in Liverpool on 16 June. The G3 Class con-ro ships that operate from the US on arrival in Liverpool then run a weekly circuit comprising Antwerp, Hamburg, Gothenburg and back to Liverpool. (In the US, the ships call at Halifax, New York, Baltimore and Norfolk.) They are capable of handling


very large pieces of cargo (up to 220 tonnes on special mafi trailers or 255t on pedestals) and 6-7m high and 25.8m wide, as well as trade cars and containers. With road movements of outsize cargo in Europe increasingly restricted, many shippers were looking for water options as an alternative. ACL has been marketing the intra- European service for about ten years now, Ian Higby told FBJ. A major factor in its decision to do so was vastly improved port performance, which made it possible to offer shippers dependable sailing and arrival times in Europe. Liverpool also had the advantage that it was in the heart of the UK’s main industrial region and the port’s floating crane was another important asset. Vessels could sometimes be


delayed on the inbound leg by the weather, but recovery time in the schedule minimised the effect on the short-sea schedule, Higby added. Also, as most movements were port- to-port, rather than connecting on to other vessels, most shippers were not unduly inconvenienced by a day or so’s delay, he added. However, connecting services


to other parts of the world are available. ACL is part of the Grimaldi Group, which operates its own lo lo services to, for example South America or West Africa. Hamburg is the usual transhipment point. The ships are nearing the end of their operational lives, and Grimaldi is planning to replace them with a new G4 class in around three years’ time. No firm orders have been placed though, and the new ships will probably have to be capable of fitting the locks in Liverpool.


Stena buoyed by new routes clearance


In a statement, Stena Line said it was delighted that its acquisition of the DFDS routes from Belfast to Liverpool and Belfast to Heysham had been fully approved by the Competition Commission on 29 June. It said the £40m deal would allow it to improve its service on the Irish Sea by offering several different alternatives for transportation between Northern Ireland and Great Britain and would improve service and frequency.


Irish Sea area director Michael McGrath said: “We will now engage


in a process of evaluation and integration in terms of the wider Stena Line business.”


Stena Line will also acquire four ships from DFDS which will include the chartered Lagan Seaways and Mersey Seaways on the Belfast- Liverpool route and the freight carriers Scotia Seaways and Hibernia Seaways. This will bring the number of Stena Line routes on the Irish Sea to six, adding to the existing Stranraer-Belfast, Holyhead-Dublin, Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire and Fishguard-Rosslare routes.


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