FLEET MARITIME

Vol 17, No. 2 – SUMMER 2021

SHIPPING & FREIGHT NEWSLETTER – Compiled by Howard Knott – howard@fleet.ie

SHIPPING LINES

The Stobart family owned WS Transportation has purchased Mezeron Shipping. The Ramsey, Isle of Man, based company has been operating a single general cargo vessel, with 277 gross tonnes, built in 1968. The Silver River has been on a regular Belfast/ Ramsey service for many years. WS Transportation was founded in 2014 and operates a substantial freight business through locations throughout Britain and in Ireland.

PORTS AND HARBOURS

Rosslare Port becomes a real “Europort”

Wexford County Council has announced its decision on the preferred route for the Oilgate/Rosslare Europort link that will bring the complete route from Dublin to dual carriageway/ motorway standard. The 31 km link will utilise a mix of both the existing road corridor, which will be upgraded and a new corridor to bypass significant constraints on the existing corridor.

In announcing the final go-ahead for the project Wexford County Council’s Director of Service Eamonn Hore, said, “The impacts of Brexit have significantly intensified Rosslare Europort’s strategic importance as a gateway for Irish trade and tourism. Even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, weekly continental ferry services at the Port have increased to 34 per week. Freight volumes with continental Europe increased by approximately 460% in the first half of 2021, and overall freight volumes, including Britain, have increased by 60%. The N11/ N25 Oilgate to Rosslare Harbour project aims to secure the future resilience of this critical international land-sea corridor by delivering a safe, sustainable, high-quality and cost-effective transport connection with Rosslare Europort”.

Regular ferry sailings each week from Rosslare include, fourteen to South Wales, seven to Cherbourg, five to Dunkirk and two to Bilbao. In addition, the Trade Car business is served by Neptune Line. DFDS are planning to return the Dunkirk service to a daily frequency in the early autumn.

Following the introduction of the EU COVID certificate, passenger numbers through the port have begun to increase with more significant numbers expected to pass through in August. The Border Control Post at Rosslare enabling Customs, Agriculture, Phytosanitary and Health Checks is now fully operational ahead of the anticipated EU/UK Trade Deal requirements coming fully into operation over the coming months.

Killybegs Harbour is reported by ‘Coastal Shipping’ as having experienced a significant increase in reefer traffic during the early months of 2021. Prior to the entry into operation of the Brexit Trade Agreement would have added considerable costs to the business in which Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, and Norwegian trawlers landed their mackerel catches at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands from where the fish were shipped by reefer vessels to West Africa. Now these vessels are using the County Donegal port. Operation through Lerwick or another UK port would have involved importing and then exporting the fish through a ‘third country’.

Dun Laoghaire Harbour, now under the control of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, is being used by Belgian Beam Trawlers to land catches from the Irish Sea. The fish are then taken to their home market by trailer. Pre-Brexit, this operation had been carried out at Liverpool.

Port of Cork and Cork and Harbour Chamber ran a workshop event on 15 July 15 to discuss how Cruise Tourism through Cobh could be re-started for the 2022 season. Conor Mowlds, the Port Commercial Manager told the meeting that vessel bookings for 2022 and succeeding seasons were strong and that the Port, along with all other partners in tourism development in the region, needed to develop a strong and very safe offering to entice Cruise tourists back. It is now likely that the Ringaskiddy Container port facility will not come into operation until early 2022 due to delays in completing building work there due to COVID-19.

It remains unclear how an already very busy Dublin Port will be able to cope with significant numbers of cruise ship calls within the next few years as the port’s development projects, along with the trade developments arising from Brexit and significant increases in freight moving through the port have already caused significant issues.

Fears have been expressed by Doug Bannister, CEO of Port of Dover, that the return of British Holiday Makers travelling through the Port could lead to a return of the delays for both tourists and hauliers at the port. In 2019 dover handled some 2.4 million trucks, 2 million tourist cars and 74,000 coaches. He told Reuters News Agency that, though Dover had so far managed to switch to operation of Custom checks efficiently following Britain leaving the EU, that was eased by the lack of tourist traffic to France during the COVID-19 pandemic. This had allowed staff more time to process paperwork. Mr. Bannister called on the UK Government to urgently

Stena Horizon, Stena Foreteller and Visby alongside at Rosslare

reconsider their position on the provision of funding to redevelop the Port and prevent long-term damage. A further factor likely to cause disruption to traffic flow through the Kent Port will be the implementation in October 2021 and in January 2022 of an additional series of Border Control checks as the EU/UK Trade Agreement moves towards full implementation. The UK Government has, so far, proven to be reluctant to accede to the port’s request for funding to enable the building of improved Border Control facilities.

The Port of Le Havre is now the largest component of the Haropa Port combination. Haropa combines the management and operation of the River Seine ports including, Paris, Rouen and Radicatel. In addition to being a major hub for the deep-sea container business operated by CMA-CGM, MSC, Maersk and others, Le Havre has developed, in conjunction with Renault and other manufacturers, a significant and rapidly growing automotive transport and related services business.

Dunkirk Port, looking to reduce shore-side emissions, has funded and inaugurated quayside cold ironing facilities. These enable container vessels berthed alongside at the Terminal des Flandres to plug in to an onshore electricity supply. They can then shut down their auxiliary engines while still getting the power they need, particularly to maintain the controlled temperatures in refrigerated containers.

The technology has significant environmental benefits, including zero emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxides along with fine particles while vessels are working on the berth. Noise pollution is also significantly reduced. The Port’s initial partner in the project has been the CMA CGM Group. Welcoming their first vessel to inaugurate the service, Christine Cabau Woehrel, CMA-CGM VP in charge of industrial assets said: Given CMA-CGM’s steadfast commitment to installing more environmentally responsible solutions on board its vessels, the group supports cold ironing, and we will continue to equip our fleet accordingly”. Critically important to the whole concept of cold ironing is that all vessels seeking to make use of it are equipped with standardized equipment to make connections with the supply and Port based equipment is also standardized. Due to the very high-power requirements of large ferries and cruise liners it is unlikely that they can avail of such facilities in the near future.

FERRY SERVICE DEVELOPMENTS

Irish Ferries has opened its Dover/ Calais route. The Isle of Inishmore operates up to five round trips daily with a sailing time each way of approximately 90 minutes. The line advises that it plans to add further capacity to the route as traffic develops. Prior to taking up service the vessel underwent a substantial refit at the Danish Fayard Shipyard. There, considerable work was done to fit new stern doors and a ‘cow catcher’ ramp at the bow to enable the vessel to load and discharge quickly at the channel ports. The Isle of Inishmore has freight capacity of 2,000 lane metres, can accommodate up to 855 cars and up to 2,200 passengers.

Ahead of the commencement of the Irish Ferries service P&O Ferries restored its Dover/Calais fleet number to five vessels and announced an agreement with DFDS Ferries under which freight vehicles can ship on the first available vessel irrespective of shipping line. This should reduce waiting time on quay to a minimum and give an effective service frequency for hauliers like that offered by the competing Eurotunnel. The new service pooling arrangement does not apply to tourist and other passenger traffic.

The start of the daily DFDS service operating from Sheerness on the Thames Estuary to Calais which had been scheduled for early June was deferred to later in July while, at the time of writing the e-Flexer vessel, Cote D’Opale, has yet to take up service on the DFDS, Dover/ Calais route.

DFDS has also advised Ports and hauliers of its intention to boost capacity and sailing frequency on the Rosslare/ Dunkirk route as soon as it can secure additional tonnage. The company has reported a high level of enquiries for tourist car and motorhome traffic on the route. Meanwhile, Brittany Ferries have resumed passenger operations on the Cork/Roscoff route and has dropped the St. Malo and Rosoff links from Rosslare. The company reports good freight carryings on its Rosslare/Bilbao and Rosslare/Cherbourg services.

Grimaldi Lines has launched a twice weekly freight ferry route linking Ringaskiddy and Antwerp. This service, like the twice weekly Ringaskiddy/ Zeebrugge service operated by CLdN is planned to link in with the company’s

Rosslare Europort - DFDS; Brittany Ferries; Stena Line

CLdN Delphine

network services linking the Belgian Terminals with ports in Scandinavia, through to Iberia. Grimaldi also maintains its Mediterranean and Deep-Sea schedules from Ringaskiddy.

CLdN now operates ten services each week from Dublin Port, two to Santander and four each to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge. There has also been a significant increase in the vessel sizes being used on the Benelux services, meeting the demand arising a switch by Irish manufacturers and traders away from sourcing and selling in Britain to doing so with other EU Member States. While the mix of cargo being shipped in trailers and that in containers pre-Brexit had been quite even, it has now shifted strongly to trailer shipment. This has implications, not only for the shipping line operations as containers can be stacked two high on Mafi-trailers on board and trailers cannot, but the implications for the terminal operators are

also much more serious. In terminals containers can be stacked up to six high and this shift eats up space. Due to a shortage of available vessels CLdN has also suspended its Dublin/Liverpool/ Leixoes service. The company has a strong pipeline of new vessels under construction in South Korea.

Stena Line added capacity to its Britain/ Northern Ireland service during the month of July by taking the e-Flexer, Stena Estrid off the Dublin/Holyhead route for two days each weekend and using her for a Friday and Saturday night sailing from Holyhead to Belfast. At the same time Irish Ferries is operating Epsilon on a Dublin/Cherbourg rotation each weekend, giving nine round trip sailings each fortnight in combination with W.B. Yeats. The combined effect of these schedule changes is to reduce weekend capacity on the Dublin/ Holyhead route by half.

Stena Line had previously announced an intention to switch the Stena Estrid to the Rosslare/ Cherbourg route should significant tourist traffic levels emerge on that route and to take the smaller Stena Horizon onto the Dublin/Holyhead route. Having worked at significantly reduced sailing schedules in Spring and early Summer on the Rosslare/Fishguard service, the firm has returned the Stena Europe to its full fourteen round-trip sailings weekly schedule.

LO-LO CONTAINER SERVICE DEVELOPMENTS

The DP World owned European feeder and door to door freight service operator Unifeeder, has opened a weekly Southampton/Belfast/Cork service. This is mainly focused on feeder traffic through Southampton. The Line has said that it hoped to be able to introduce a Dublin call within the service but that, due to the high levels of congestion in Dublin, has been unable to do so as yet. Unifeeder has ben a leader in the introduction of carbon counting on its services planned to enable customers to choose the most suitable multimodal option for their transport.

DP World, which also owns ferry and multimodal operator P&O Ferries/ Ferrymasters, operates several ports in Britain (including Southampton), Europe and further afield. The company has also moved into the Forwarding and Supply Chain areas and among recent purchases in that area has been that of Syncreon. Syncreon, which has its origins in Forwarder Walsh Western, currently employs 200 staff in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick and 14,000 at more than 100 other global locations.

Independent Container Line (ICL) has, together with the Port of Cork, celebrated completion the first year of service on their weekly link between Cork and the US east coast ports of Chester and Richmond. The service schedule also includes the ports of Antwerp and Southampton. The Line’s agents in Ireland, Johnson Stevens, reports very satisfactory traffic development both in full container loads and in the recently opened LCL (Less than Containerload) services. Following the significant reduction of transatlantic airfreight capacity due the COVID-19 induced virtual cessation of passenger flights, many traditional airfreight users in the pharmaceutical and food product areas have switched to using the ICL service. The Line advises that it is in discussions with Port of Cork and the Revenue Commissioners about the establishment of a fully operational Border Control Post in Cork that would support shipping and airfreight services from non-EU countries.

Following the rapid growth of traffic on the Dublin/Amsterdam service, which was launched in January 2021, Samskip has introduced a significantly larger vessel onto the service and has added a Waterford call. The 750TEU vessel, Edith sails from Waterford to Amsterdam each Friday morning while a vessel on the company’s Ireland/Rotterdam service makes a call to the south-East port later in the day. There is also a Rotterdam connection sailing on Tuesday.

The combined schedules enable containers shipped out of Ballina on the Irish Rail train chartered by forwarders XPO, to be shipped to either destination. The rail service will also be extended to link with the other Rotterdam service call at Waterford.

Welcoming the expansion of the Ireland/Amsterdam service, Thijs Goumans, Head of the Ireland Trade at Samskip said: “We have experienced

Independent vision at Roches Point Samskip Amsterdam

strong uptake for the direct route into Amsterdam’s network of rail, road and barge connections to major European markets. As anticipated, customers linking to Ireland have been eager to avoid the post-Brexit hassles of UK distribution. Waterford can expect the same seamless connections.”

In addition to operation of a wide range of European rail-based distribution services, Samskip has developed a strong series of rail services out of Duisburg into Asian markets. In a further recent move, Samskip, has now established its own office in Finland further strengthening its Baltic and Nordic operations.

DEEPSEA SERVICES FACE ‘A PERFECT STORM’

During 2019 and preceding years the global Deepsea container shipping services network operated relatively smoothly with minimal port delays and few container and shipping capacity constraints. The major issues of concern were the ‘greening’ of international supply chains and improving their efficiency based on the development and exploitation of IT resources.

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 problems began to emerge. The immediate closedown of many production facilities in Asia as the pandemic spread slowed the shipment of goods to Europe and North America and the discharge and delivery of containers laden with cargo at Asian Ports. Later, as Asia picked up, other economies slowed.

When an element of normality returned, ports were congested, containers were on the wrong side of the globe and shipping schedules were completely disrupted. These difficulties persist, the major Chinese Port of Yantian has only in the last month returned to operation having been closed by a further COVID-19 outbreak and Lines have altered some schedules to skip out Ports which are subject to backing up of vessels. Ports being skipped include Rotterdam and Le Havre on either inbound or outbound voyages. Many inland ports and terminals are also facing major congestion and, for example, in the US train services bringing containers into Chicago faced a temporary halt as the discharging terminals could not cope with the volumes coming through.

In the case of Ports within Europe the Brexit ripples have added to the difficulties with ports, including Dublin, under significant space pressure leading, in that case, to the temporary suspension of the IWT container rail service feeding traffic to and from Ballina. The manufacturing of containers, which has been totally concentrated in China, ground to a halt in 2020 and is only now being ramped up again while small-scale production has commenced in Russia.

Add to this, examples of further disruption such as the grounding in the Suez Canal of the Ever Given with some 18,000TEU on board which took place in March, but the vessel has only been released to sail onward to Europe within the last couple of weeks. In this case, not only will the cargo owners face many months delay in goods reaching their final destination, but also, as ‘general average’ has been declared by the vessel owners the cargo owners will finish up sharing the costs arising from the incident. All these factors have led to a huge increase in ‘spot’ container rates with rates reaching five times the 2019 rate on all traffics out of Asia as well as a huge spike in vessel charter rates applying to not only the large Deepsea vessels but also the smaller feeder service vessels as owners scramble to meet an unprecedented demand for manufactured goods stimulated by enforced savings on the part of developed world customers. Throughout the Spring and early Summer, the conventional wisdom has been that these rates levels will drop back but this is far from happening and it now appears likely that the very high rates will apply well into 2022. In the case of containers loading temperature-controlled cargo the same pattern of rates has occurred, but not to such an extreme level.

SOME POSITIVES

It is worth pointing out, however, that the major cargo movements are done under contract rates agreed by the shipper or Forwarding Agent with the Carriers. The 2021/2022 rates revisions have shown increases but nothing like those for the ‘spot’ market. Also, a few Lines have been shifting away from being simply Deepsea quay to quay operators to offering contracted shippers’ door-to-door packages with certain rate and service guarantees.

While ocean freight rates have soared, the costs of operation for the Asia/Europe container rail services have, if anything, dropped with Shipping Lines, Forwarders and some manufacturers chartering complete trains to move significant cargo volumes. The development of services linking Ireland to ports such as Amsterdam and Dunkirk make accessing these rail services a more practical proposition.

China to Europe train Evergreen