Short Sea Services News

Ellerman City Liners has launched a new short-sea shipping service connecting the Baltics with the UK and the Benelux region, establishing a new route for the company in the region.The BALTEX service will operate on a fixed weekly rotation, calling at Riga, Latvia; Gdynia, Poland; Teesport and Tilbury in the UK; Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and Oslo, Norway. The weekly service offers a capacity of 1,160 TEU per leg and provides fast transshipment connections to Spain and Portugal via the Port of Tilbury, one of the UK’s major short-sea and deep-sea hubs.

Interferry – representing more than 270 companies and some 1,200 individual members from over 40 countries – is co-hosting a workshop at next month’s European Shipping Summit in Brussels to stress the importance of shifting more goods transport from road to short sea services, notably through better use of European Union funding to enhance the sector’s competitiveness.The workshop – ‘How to increase the share of maritime transport in Europe’s trade’  – takes place at 09:30 on September 19 in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and is open to all interested professionals.

Marine Highways Gain Traction in the Intermodal Supply Chain.In the United States, landside infrastructure is at a crisis point. Congestion at the big hub ports, exacerbated by imperfect intermodal interfaces with surface transport serving cargo hinterlands is at the heart of the matter. As politicians bicker over a possible infrastructure package, the Highway Trust Fund, funded by taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, has continued its downward journey towards further deficits (now $144 billion). And, where countless U.S.

Samskip is launching a new shortsea service connecting Antwerp and Hull, in an expansion of its continent-UK multimodal network that also sees it debut at Belgium’s largest port.The intermodal logistics company  said in a press release that the initial schedule offers a twice weekly short sea container service, with its first departure from Antwerp on the 12th October.The service will be operated by a 508TEU capacity vessel, sailing from ATO's multimodal terminal on Tuesday and Saturday and ABP Port of Hull on Thursday and Monday.This new connection is in addition to Samskip's existing shortsea services connecting Rotterdam with Tilbury, Hull and Grangemouth (eight per week) and the recent three times weekly Amsterdam-Hull service.

Dutch-based transport company A2B-online Container B.V. has added a fourth weekly sailing on its service between Hutchison Ports London Thamesport and Moerdijk in The Netherlands. The new sailing is inaugurated today (18 April 2018) by the first call of the m.s. A2B Spirit (ex-Norfeeder), a Sietas 151 type 508 TEU container ship, the fourth of this class owned and operated by A2B. Commenting on the new sailing, Clemence Cheng, Executive Director Hutchison Ports, said:“London Thamesport offers its customers a service tailored to their specific demands. We are seeing a growing demand in the short-sea container market as a response to increasing labour shortages in the driver-accompanied market and uncertainty around Brexit.

A2B-online Container, GoodFuels Marine and We4Sea launch a collaboration project with the aim to reduce fossil fuel consumption and CO2-emissions for two A2B-online ships. Big Data technology is used to map the possibilities for more efficient shipping operations. The cost efficiencies achieved by reduced levels of fuel consumption will subsequently be used to deploy advanced, sustainable biofuels, by which the CO2-emissions will further decrease. A2B-online Container B.V. offers reliable short-sea services from the port of Moerdijk to several ports in the UK. This collaboration project is in line with A2B-online’s ambition to further improve the emission performance of her ships.

The International Maritime Organization’s proposals to reduce sulfur levels in marine fuels to a maximum of 0.5 percent m/m (mass/mass) by 2020 may prove to be controversial, having met with various responses from major shipping organisations and other bodies. The decision to implement the proposals by 2020 was taken by IMO, the regulatory authority for international shipping, during its Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 70) meeting, which was held in London, UK in October 2016, and represents a significant reduction from the 3.5 percent m/m global limit currently in place.

APL is expanding its Intra-Asia service network with the launch of a new Japan Taiwan 6 (JT6) Service and an upgraded Japan Thailand 2 (JT2) Service. The new JT6 Service links the markets of Japan, Taiwan, South China with the Philippines. The upgraded JT2 Service is enhanced with 7 additional ports of call in the key hubs of Japan, Taiwan, South China and Thailand. “APL is committed to keep levelling up our shipping services and market connectivity so that our customers can better access existing and new markets with ease, reliability and speed. It is noteworthy that the two weekly short sea services will call the major transshipment hubs of Hong Kong and Kaohsiung…

CMA CGM announced the extension of its port coverage and its competiveness in the Mediterranean, CMA CGM will consolidate its own FEMEX service jointly with SEAGO and Hamburg Süd. This improvement increases the service offering for customers on the important link between North Europe and the Marmara Region in Turkey. For CMA CGM, the new ports of Felixstowe, Valencia and Piraeus will be added to the former existing rotation. The current calls at Casablanca and Constanta are transferred on new dedicated short sea services. This means an improved transit time both on the south and north bound. The new service will be operated by five 6,500 TEUs vessels: 2 by CMA CGM, 2 by SEAGO and 1 by Hamburg Süd.

In a landmark decision for both the environment and human health, 1 January 2020 has been set as the implementation date for a significant reduction in the sulphur content of the fuel oil used by ships. The decision to implement a global sulphur cap of 0.50% m/m (mass/mass) in 2020 was taken by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the regulatory authority for international shipping, during its Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), meeting for its 70th session in London. It represents a significant cut from the 3.5% m/m global limit currently in place and demonstrates a clear commitment by IMO to ensuring shipping meets its environmental obligations.

Hapag-Lloyd has informed that for all import cargo to be discharged at the German ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven the carrier is responsible to send a complete import manifest (“Summarische Anmeldung”) to German Customs Authorities latest 24 working hours prior vessel arrival at the ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven. This manifest transmission has to include all laden containers with complete Bill of Lading details without fail. German Customs Authorities have announced that with effect of March 1, 2015 any cargo which is being discharged without proper customs transmission will be considered as an illegal import transport. As a consequence such containers will be stopped and confiscated by German Customs.

DSV has launched an intermodal service between Turkey and the U.K. to add to its portfolio of road, air and short-sea services between the two countries. “We have seen an increasing interest in intermodal services as shippers seek more cost effective ways of sending their goods,” said Morten Joergensen, Managing Director DSV Road, Turkey. There are two options: three times a week direct by rail from Halkali train terminal in Istanbul to Zeebrugge or Rotterdam, or by short-sea services from Istanbul to Trieste in Italy and then by rail to Zeebrugge or Rotterdam…

After a somewhat subdued upward trend for the first three months of the year, the Port of Hamburg now reflects signs of significant growth once again. The total of 89.4 million tons of cargo handled in the first three quarters of 2010 represents an increase of eight percent over the same period of the previous year. On the import side, Port of Hamburg Marketing – the marketing organization of the Port of Hamburg – recorded cargo-handling figures of 51.8 million tons (+11.8 percent). Exports via Hamburg also recorded a positive trend with 37.6 million tons (+3.3 percent). General cargo, the dominant segment in Hamburg, showed marked growth of 8.6 percent, with a total of 60.2 million tons handled.