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Issue 2 2017 - FBJ New Stena ships to sail to Belfast


Stena has earmarked four new ro- pax ferries announced last year for delivery in 2019 and 2020 for two of its Belfast routes. The vessels are currently being built at the AVIC Shipyard in China and, with a capacity of 3,000 lane metres, will be the largest ferries ever to operate between Belfast and Great Britain, as well as being among the biggest in the entire Stena fleet. Stena Line operates 14 services


a day to Belfast on routes from Cairnryan, Liverpool (Birkenhead) and Heysham. As ro-paxes, with passenger accommodation, the new vessels have been assigned to the Cairnryan and Liverpool services but not the freight-only Heysham route. Stena Line chief executive Niclas


Mårtensson said the new ships would be among the most fuel efficient in the world with about 25% lower CO2 emissions per cargo unit than current ro-pax tonnage. They will run on traditional fuel, but are designed as “gas ready” and


are also prepared for scrubbers as well as catalytic converters, giving flexibility for the future, he added. He said: “The routes to and


from Belfast are strategically very important to Stena Line and during the last number of years we have made significant investments in ports and vessels to improve and develop our capacity. We intend to continue our ambitious development plan for our business in the region and the new vessels are a part of this strategic plan.” He said that during the last


few years Stena had seen steady growth in freight and passenger volumes with a record 500,000 freight units moved through Belfast Port. Belfast Harbour commercial


director, Joe O’Neill, described the new ships as “a significant investment in and enhancement of Northern Ireland’s premier freight and tourism gateway. Belfast Harbour has worked in close partnership with Stena Line over the last two decades to help it expand its routes into a flourishing


P&O Ferries outpaces the market


It’s been a good year all round for P&O Ferries on the Irish Sea, says director Neal Mernock. Not only did the line handle the highest volume of freight in five years on its Larne-Cairnryan service in 2016, but on the Central Corridor Liverpool-Dublin route growth was up 8% on last year. Meanwhile, on its North


had an earlier than expected effect, perhaps, has been the opening of the new Liverpool2 container port adjacent to P&O’s berth on the Liverpool side of the Mersey. There has been a notable upsurge in containers on skeletal trailers making the crossing to Dublin, which Mernock can only attribute to increase amounts of


diverted through an alternative lock, which has however led to some delays. Meanwhile, the northern


Channel short-sea route between Cairnryan and Larne, it handled 206,700 freight units during the last 12 months, a 7.5% increase on the previous year and comfortably outstripping market growth of around 4% a year. “It’s been a particularly good


year, and we’ve seen no particular effect of Brexit, except maybe some resulting from Sterling weakening as a result,” says Mernock. One scheme that has though


Irish traffic coming through the port of Liverpool. Given the closeness of its


berth to the deep-sea container terminals in Liverpool, P&O is of course in a good position to tap into this market although, frustratingly, problems with the 100-year-old locks – now seemingly fixed in mid February - have lately been disrupting its operations. Port operator Peel has though been very supportive. Vessels have


Larne/Cairnryan route has though enjoyed a 97% on-time departure record - P&O operates its own ports at both ends of the crossing which no doubt helps to improve reliability. The route – at two hours, the shortest of any Irish Sea crossing available to freight - is becoming increasingly popular even with hauliers heading to parts of the Republic of Ireland. For a UK-based operator, it offers the advantage not only of being able to pay for the ferry crossing in Sterling, but it also gives the opportunity to fuel up in Sterling too – and the new dual carriageway to Larne has made it dramatically faster to reach Belfast and all points south on the Irish trunk road system. Both northern and central


corridor routes give hauliers a wide range of options. The overnight crossing now counts as the driver’s statutory 9-hour daily break following the reorganisation of check-in arrangements in Dublin. That means that they can hit the road in Dublin at 05.30 with a ‘full’ tachograph and get to retailers’ DCs on the other side of the country before the shops open.


hub and this very welcome investment news comes on the back of a record year for Stena Line’s freight business in Belfast Harbour.” Stena’s trade director for Irish


Sea North, Paul Grant, commented: “Despite operating in a highly competitive market,


2016 was


a record year for Stena Line’s Northern Ireland operations. To carry over 500,000 freight units is a fantastic achievement for the entire Stena Line team and one which also cements Belfast Harbour’s position as Northern Ireland’s leading freight hub. “Whilst last year was a record year we cannot afford to be


///IRELAND


complacent, it’s vital that our investments in ships and ports is matched by infrastructure improvements to roads in Northern Ireland and Scotland particularly.” On its southern Eire route, Stena


Line has increased the height of the cargo deck of its Rosslare- Fishguard ferry Stena Europe to allow access for high top trailers, a key requirement of more and more freight customers operating between Britain and Ireland. Trade director for the southern


Irish Sea, Ian Davies, said that Stena had taken on


board


freight customer feedback on higher trailers and took the refit opportunity to increase the height clearance of an area of the cargo deck to 4.65m. He added: “The Stena Europe is


now equipped to accommodate all trailer height variations which we are confident will help us continue to expand our freight business in 2017.” The Stena Europe is also the


first vessel in the operator’s Irish Sea fleet of seven ships to sport the leading ferry company’s new strapline. It also had work carried out


on bow thrusters, rudders and main shaſt seals under the water line, with additional upgrades to the galley, bar and crew accommodation. Stena Line is the largest ferry


operator on the Irish Sea. In addition to services between Dublin to Holyhead it also offers a direct service from Rosslare to Cherbourg with three return crossings a week.


So near and yet so far – no longer


Heysham is probably the nearest Irish Sea port to a motorway, says Alistair Eagles, chief executive of leading unaccompanied ferry operator Seatruck. It always has been in fact – the only problem was that it was separated from the M6 by the charming but heavily congested town of Lancaster – a case of so near and yet so far. Opening of the new relief road has been a revelation, he says. “It’s not just the time saving – it’s also the increased certainty. Before, on a good day you could get from the motorway to the port in 15 minutes, but on a bad one it might take an hour and 15 minutes. So now operators can plan properly, they can work out how many round trips they can do in a day between the DC and the port.” The other group of people


that have gained have been the residents of Lancaster. The situation has to some


extent has also been mirrored in Dublin, Seatruck’s destination port in Ireland along with Warrenpoint. Here, the new Port Tunnel has replaced an excruciating crawl through the heart of Dublin with a short trip to the start of the Irish motorway system. This has allowed Dublin to capture some Northern Irish traffic that previously might have used Belfast or Cairnryan. However, it is hard to say what


effect the new road links have had on Seatruck’s own traffic. Heysham business was up 20% in October compared with the same month in 2015, but traffic out of Liverpool has also done better –there’s no evidence of truckers


switching from Merseyside to Heysham due to the new road. In fact, Alistair Eagles is


convinced that the additional traffic on either route has been pulled in from rival ferry operators. Seatruck is growing at about three times the market average, he says. However, with just under a fiſth


Liverpool-Dublin ship in 2015/16 and a bigger one on Heysham Dublin. Brexit of course is of interest to it’s not something


Seatruck but


that worries Eagles unduly. Along with other ferry industry representatives, he has attended a number of meetings with


of the Irish Sea freight market, there is still plenty of business for Seatruck to go for and convert to its mainly unaccompanied service. The major truck operators have certainly got the message and have moved large amounts of their business over to Seatruck, but there are plenty of others who still need to be won over. “I think there are a lot of


historic pre-conceptions about unaccompanied, about damage to trailers or traffic being short- shipped. Maybe there’s also a misconception that it’s not suitable for fridge trailers – but one of the biggest customers on our Dublin-Liverpool route is a fridge operator.” Seatruck has ample space for


growth in the immediate future, having added a third and a fourth


government officials and the overwhelming feeling at those has been that clearance


formal customs at ports would be


extremely undesirable, as no Irish port has the space to deal with trucks stacked up waiting to clear customs. It could be avoided either by some sort of juxtaposed system similar to existing passport checks on the Dover/Calais route and/or adoption of an accounting-based method to deal with customs duty similar to the existing VAT system. If random checks of trucks and their loads are needed, these could perhaps take place at inland points, not the ports. If the system does gum up to


any extent, Seatruck would at least have the option of switching more capacity to its services to Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland.


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