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Issue 8 2013 Freight Business Journal Now the hard work begins


“To those who said it should, could or would not be done, stand aside for those who have done it,” said DP World chief executive officer Simon Moore as he declared London Gateway open. A little bombast was understandable; among the doubters were some very senior members of the last Labour Government. Even Mr Moore’s Dubai-based investors asked at times where all their money was going – not necessarily entirely in jest – as the project team embarked on one of the largest land reclamation projects even seen on these shores. Some


90,000 tonnes of aggregate


and 1,500 tie rods went into the infrastructure, much of which is invisible below the surface of the estuary. Even the environmental


protection operation, which shiſted 350,000 creatures to new habitats, was the largest of its kind ever seen in Europe. So, the drumming red-coated


marines didn’t seem entirely out of place at the opening ceremony to mark the arrival of the MOL Caledon, the first regular scheduled container ship to use the new port.


Gradually, the small point of


reclaimed land – dubbed Simon’s Island – gradually grew and within a remarkably short space of time there was a brand new container port on the Essex marshes, complete with five state-of-the-art gantry cranes capable of dealing with any ship afloat. Perhaps even more importantly


the new port comes with an attached logistics park – the first such development in the UK for a very long time and certainly the only such area in the south-east of England. As the DP World people never fail to point out, London


and the South-east accounts for the lion’s share of the UK’s imports – and, surprisingly, a fair slice of its exports – but has only 10% of the country’s warehousing stock. A new office complex for the


logistics industry has been built – No. 1 London Gateway – on the site of the former port administration offices. With London not only the UK’s


leading population centre but also now one of the world’s major gastronomic areas, the new port also has the potential to become a major food hub. It boasts one of Europe’s largest and most modern


LD Lines to enter UK/Spain market


French ferry operator LD Lines introduced a new freight and passenger service between Poole and Santander in Northern Spain on 3 November. LD Lines, which already runs a


service from Saint Nazaire, south of Brittany and Gijón in Northern Spain, described it as a major development in the creation of an Atlantic ferry network. There will be two return sailings a week with a crossing time of 26 hours. Departing Poole on Saturday at 11.30am and Tuesday at 12 noon, returning from Santander on Sunday at 18.00 and Thursday at 12 noon. The route will be operated


by the Norman Asturias with capacity for up to 110 freight vehicles, 500 passengers and 200 cars. She is currently operating LD Lines’ Saint Nazaire to Gijón route will be replaced by her sister ship, the Scintu. LD Lines’ chief executive officer Christophe


Santoni


said the freight market would benefit by avoiding France’s weekend traffic ban and, should it be implemented, the Ecotax for


Border Inspection Posts and, as chairman of MOL Liner Junichiro Ikeda pointed out, around 60% of his ships’ reefer boxes to Europe are UK-bound. Significantly, the first train to


depart from London Gateway on 7 November, at 07.50 heading for Daventry, was full of wine imported by specialist forwarder JF Hillebrand. A second JF Hillebrand wine train due to depart in the aſternoon, was bound for Bristol. Both trains were operated Freightliner. Although DB Schenker nailed its colours to the


by


mast some time ago by becoming the first rail operator to commit to services out of London Gateway, Freightliner will also be running regular trains from the port’s opening. Now, though, the hard work


of making London Gateway a commercial success must begin. Some 12,000 job applications have been siſted and 5,000 interviews carried out, and a team of 400 people has been recruited. “It’s not oſten you get the chance to build a team completely from scratch,” commented.


Simon Moore Southampton


gets its retaliation in first


trucks. In an interview with FBJ,


Santoni added that the plan was to eventually integrate the new UK/Spain service with the existing Saint Nazaire to Gijón route. This would probably see a direct weekly UK/Gijón link added. He said: “We believe this would be the first direct ro ro link to Gijón from the UK, which is attractive not only for Spain but also the Portuguese market.” The announcement of


the


new LD Lines service follows Brittany Ferries’ withdrawal of its weekend Poole-Santander freighter service in September. While this was helpful in reducing overcapacity on the route, it was not the main driver for LD Lines’ decision to enter the market, said Santoni. Britanny still offers freight capacity on its remaining multi-purpose vessels from Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth to Santander and Bilbao and to France.


The new Santander route


will cater for accompanied, unaccompanied and maafi freight. There will also be 50 reefer plug-in points. The ferry industry itself


will though have to cope with new sulphur limits from 2015, either by modifying vessels or using more diesel. But LD Lines could at least take comfort that a large portion of the UK/Spain route was outside the emission controlled area.


Not to be outdone by its DP World sister port, London Gateway, Southampton marked the start of three new transatlantic services with the inaugural call of Hapag-Lloyd’s Kobe Express on 5 November, just two days before its new rival was due to open. The south coast terminal will now receive three additional weekly sailings from the Grand Alliance on the America-Europe trade: The Gulf Atlantic Express (GAX), the Gulf Mexico Express (GMX) services and the Pacific Atlantic Express (PAX, which also connects with Asia and the US West Coast). This is in addition to the existing weekly North Atlantic Express service ATX of the Grand Alliance which has been calling at Southampton for many years. The Grand Alliance said that


moving the three Transatlantic services to the south coast port


would further improve schedule reliability. Southampton says


that its


average shipside container moves per hour are significantly higher than its current nearest UK rival and it moves 36% of inland containers by rail, a higher modal share than any other UK terminal. Earlier this year Southampton


secured calls from the G6 Alliance ‘Loop 5’,


connecting


Southampton with South Korea and China, as well as from CMA CGM’s FEMEX service, connecting Southampton with Turkey, Greece and Morocco. DP World’s landlord


ABP


is investing £150m in a new 500m long deep berth due to open in early 2014 to cater for the next generation container vessels, four additional super post panamax cranes and an extensive dredging program.


///NEWS


Weekly land service to and from Turkey Standard service, two drivers, faster transit time


For more information contact marketing.uk@dbschenker.com FBJ October_2013_ 60_270mm.indd 1 www.logistics.dbschenker.co.uk 14/10/2013 08:58:32


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