Seaborne freight expanding

Operators of both ropax vessels and freight roros are opting for newbuildings which carry more freight, and offer faster passage and turnround times.

Within Europe pressure is growing to move more freight from the roads into sea transport. Also, freight roro operators are increasingly moving towards offering customers a total transportation package by the addition of road transport companies and port cargo handling facilities to their operations.

Operators of ropax vessels are also specifying more lane metre capacity for freight in newbuildings, and in the case of UK —based operator P&O Portsmouth, specifically promoting the existing freight carrying capabilities of their vessels directly to European trucking companies with a freight-specific brochure and website.

In the Mediterranean, the Italian group Grimaldi is expanding its short sea freight services and is also setting up a network of directly managed port terminals, particularly on its Euro-Med service, which serves 18 ports in 14 different European and Mediterranean countries.

The company has also extended its Adriatic service to include Turkey, and increased frequency to weekly. In addition, its West Mediterranean weekly service between Italy, Spain and Malta has been increased with the introduction of three more vessels this year.

On the conventional roro passenger ferry side, Greek operator Minoan Lines has four 29.5 knot vessels on order. The first pair, costing a total of $250 million, are being built at Fincantieri, Italy.

The first ship, Knossos Palace, will enter service at the end of next year on the company’s Piraeus — Heraklion route, followed six months later by Festos Palace. The service speed of 29.5 knots is high for a conventional ferry design, allowing the vessels to complete the journey between Piraeus and Heraklion in six hours, cutting four hours off the previous journey time.

The company intends the second pair of vessels to operate in the Adriatic between Patras — Igoumentisa — Corfu — Venice

P&O North Sea Ferries is awaiting delivery of two new 11,000 dwt 2,600m lane length roros from Aker Finnyards. Norsky will enter service in July, and Norstream in October. They will replace Norking and Norqueen on Teesport — Zeebrugge route.

The two routes have shown consistent growth, the greatest on the Rotterdam route, says Mr Hull. The above vessels will give the company four relatively new ships, and increase capacity by 35 per cent on the Teesport — Zeebrugge route, and by 50 per cent on Teesport — Rotterdam.

Last year, DFDS Tor Line’s freight carryings were up by around 7 per cent on all North Sea routes. The company says that its services were very fully booked last year and it is planning the introduction of a series of new vessels, as well as bringing in extra existing tonnage and repositioning other ships in this fleet to cater for the existing demand.

The company will be adding three 2,820m lane capacity roros to its Immingham — Gothenburg (AngloBridge) route this year. When all three ships are in service they will provide a 50 per cent increase in capacity on the route over hat provided by the current four vessels, the company says.

The company is also expanding its fleets on other North Sea routes. A total of four ships are being added to the EuroBridge service between Gothenburg and Ghent.

The joint service which Tor Line operates with Stena between Gothenburg and Harwich, Stena Tor Line, will see its sailings extended from two to three per week.

Stena Line will be chartering two new 30,500g, ropax ferries just ordered by Stena AB from AESA’s Puerto Real yard at a cost of £100 million ($162 million), to be deployed on Stena Line’s Harwich — Hook of Holland route in the second half of 2000.