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Issue 8 2018 - Freight Business Journal Swedish freight firms to merge


Greencarrier Freight Services Sweden is merge with Terminus Spedition & Transport from 1 April 2019. Greencarrier said the move would create substantial synergy by bringing together its offices in the Nordic and Baltic countries, UK, Poland and China with the vast experience and long history of Terminus in the Swedish market in particular. Greencarrier founder and


owner, Stefan Björk, said: “The joint venture with Terminus is in


line with our business strategy to continue to grow and stay top of mind for sustainable transport solutions. Terminus is a company that shares our mindset that everything is possible making them a perfect partner.” Terminus managing director,


Stefan Augustsson, added: “Terminus and Greencarrier share values and philosophy and together we will create one of the strongest players in the market.


Through our cooperation, we will be able to offer our customers an even more competitive range of services, a state of the art IT system, and we will also have our own representation in several markets, such as China.” A few days later Greencarrier


Freight Services Denmark announced a similar move, saying that it would merge with Hecksher Linieagenturer from 1 January and that, from 1 April 2019, the latter’s offices


Full steam ahead for Helsinki


outside Denmark merge with those of Greencarrier’s Nordic Consolidators company. In a statement, Greencarrier said that the merger of the two


///SCANDINAVIA


companies would combine its existing footprint with “the vast experience and long history of Hecksher in particular on the Danish market”. Björk said: “We are very


pleased with this agreement, which will help liſt the activities


to the next level.” Hecksher owner Lars


Bertelsen added: “It has been important to find a Scandinavian partner, with the same ethical value set, and we are really looking forward to this collaboration.”


Unitised cargo – containers


and ro ro – is the biggest category of cargo at Helsinki. Container growth has though slowed down from the fast pace of the start of the year. By September, 282,000teu had been transported (+3.6% or 3.1 million tonnes (+5.7%). Ro ro traffic was up 4.3% in


January–September at almost 456,000 units, or 5.8 million tonnes (+2.5%). Unitized cargo, - that is, cargo transported in sea containers, lorries and trailers - is the largest cargo type at the Port of Helsinki. A large part of this consists of consumables. Helsinki


is Finland’s leading


port for general cargo. Helsinki moved its container


Cargo through the Port of Helsinki reached record levels in 2018, although growth has fallen off from the peak reached during the year, said chief executive Ville Haapasaari, in a statement


published on 19 October. During January–September,


a total of 11.4 million tonnes of cargo was handled, up 10.4%- 5.4m tonnes of imports (+3.1%), and 5.9m tonnes of exports (+18.0%).


activities to a site at Vuosaari outside the city centre ten years ago, although passenger ferries and any freight they carry remains in the existing port.


A spokesperson said: “The


new location was built from scratch, so we were able to build


DSV sees Brexit swings and roundabouts


Despite Brexit, the Scandinavia freight market is reasonably stable in terms of volume flow compared with 2017, says DSV senior director, Karl Timmis. Timmis, who is responsible


for full loads in northern European and Scandinavia for the UK says: “The continued uncertainty of Brexit is certainly slowing the market down since summer but is somewhat compensated by the lower value of Sterling and thereby making the market attractive to purchase from UK exporters which is offering a better balanced market.”


it as modern as possible and take especially sustainability into account much better than anywhere else.” The new container


terminal also benefits from excellent highway links, the spokesperson added. After moving the container


activities to Vuosaari, the port gave up its own crane operation to third party stevedores. Back in the ‘old’ port of


Helsinki, recent developments include completion of a modern terminal building for the Helsinki/Tallinn ferries. The port is also looking into parking solutions in the area as well as city infrastructure due to the heavy traffic generated. However, due to the heavy


traffic there is also pressure to move this operation from the city centre to Vuosaari.


This is increasing utilisation of available capacity arriving from Scandinavia. However: “We also see an


increased level of interest towards stockholding in the UK to offset any possible impact delays due to a hard Brexit and therefore UK warehousing is steadily rising in demand with limited capacity available, putting pressure on pricing for current warehouse availability.” Timmis adds: “Brexit is clearly


a concern for the freight industry as a whole. However we feel that DSV is well placed to offer alternative services by having both a large pool of European driver accompanied units and trailers and an intermodal port-based unaccompanied operation ensuring, whatever the outcome, we will be able to


deliver a solution. The increase in German road tax in January


2019


may add further costs to a driver-accompanied solution from Scandinavia which could be to the advantage of unaccompanied operations serving the UK directly, thus avoiding the need to transit Germany. In 2017 DSV invested £3.5


million in new offices and driver facilities in Immingham, which supports most of the operator’s Scandinavian flows. It has now invested a further £9m in upgrading its facility at Purfleet, adding 3000sq m of cross dock facilities and improving warehouse and driver facilities, complimenting the office refurbishment earlier this year.


Gothenburg sees container surge


Containers through Gothenburg – the Nordic region’s largest port – were up 20% in the first nine months of 2018 compared with the same period in the preceding year. Container rail traffic was up 7%. Intra-European ro-ro traffic remained unchanged, it added. The port added that aſter


years of planning, construction of a new terminal in the outer area has started - the largest expansion in 40 years. The


220,000sq m terminal is scheduled for completion around 2025. In June this year, Swedish


Minister for Infrastructure Thomas Eneroth gave the go- ahead for a project to deepen the fairways at Gothenburg and agreed to cover almost one-third of the cost of the project. Deeper fairways will allow the very largest vessels to call at the port fully loaded.


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