The Competition College of the Belgian Competition Authority has approved the merger between the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge.
The High-Speed Vessel of the Future competition was launched in October 2021 by the county municipalities of Trøndelag, Vestland, Nordland, and Troms and Finnmark.
The goal is not only to develop a vessel with zero emissions, but also to reduce energy consumption by a minimum of 30 percent compared to traditional vessels. The vessel must carry at least 150-180 passengers, cruise at 30-40 knots, and have a range of 40-80 nautical miles.
Over the next four months Umoe Mandal will continue to work on the concept. Together with Eker Design, ESNA, LMG Marin, SES-X, and Transportutvikling, Umoe Mandal is granted NOK 1.5 million to participate in the competition.
“Owing to operational difficulties the unaccompanied service between Calais and Sheerness will be suspended with effect from Saturday 15th January until further notice, with the last departure being from Sheerness at 11:00 hrs on Friday 14th January,” writes Freightlink on its website.
The partnership between Brittany Ferries and the CMA CGM Group has taken a new major step forward with the first loading of CMA CGM containers.
Loaded on special chassis and transported aboard COTENTIN, they left Le Havre for Portsmouth on Wednesday 12 January.
Concluded in September 2021, the commercial partnership between CMA CGM and Brittany Ferries creates complementarities between the two companies, between the maritime transport of passengers and freight, and will allow, based on the respective expertise of the CMA CGM Group and Brittany Ferries, the development of cross-Channel maritime transport and consolidation of France’s place in this sector.
On 26 January 2022, a tender concerns debt to the oil company Revoil. The former Japanese ferry (1976) was brought in Greece by Med Link Lines in 1998 for the Greece-Italy service. She also served for Maritime Way (2004-2006), Endeavor Lines (2006-2011) and Cretan Ferries (2012).
She was laid up at Perama when Cretan Ferries went out of business (2012). Sea Speed Lines purchased her at a tender in June 2018 for the Piraeus-Rethimnon line.
Another High-Speed Craft might be added to the Seajets’ fleet.
The ship was purchased from the Venezuelan Golden Sun Petroleum S.A. and renamed SPEED JET. She left the port of El Guamache (Isla Margarita) where she was laid up and currently is seen at the port of Tembladora (Trinidad & Tobago) flying the flag of Cyprus. SPEED JET was built in Australia (Austal) in 1996 and served for Scandlines (1996-2000), Ferrymed (2000-2002), SNAV (2002-2015) and Conferry (2015).
Her carrying capacity is for 156 cars and 650 passengers. She is a sister ship to Seajets’ POWER JET.
Regione Siciliana started the process for a new tender aimed at selecting the shipyard for building a new ropax ship (1+1) to be deployed on the Trapani – Pantelleria and Porto Empedocle – Lampedusa maritime links.
The ‘tender price’ is EUR 100 million, of which 4.5 million are a fixed value related to safety equipment.
Some details of the project:
- One ro-pax ship (+ option)
- Tender price of EUR 100 million for the first unit
- Based on the Naos Design P364 project
- Dual-fuel diesel electric
- 900 lane metres and 1,000 pax capacity, 105 cabins
- Tender still to be officially launched
50 years ago, a group of Breton farmers were faced with a challenge. They wanted to find a way to open up their region and transport their produce efficiently to England, sidestepping the established Eastern Channel ferry routes. The odds were against them, but they pushed for the building of a deep water port in Roscoff, and then obtained their first vessel, Kerisnel. Brittany Ferries was born…
MSC Group announced a new order for four ropax vessels to be built in China at Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI) and set to be delivered from late 2024 onwards.
The four newbuilds will have a 1,500 passenger and 3,100 lane metre capacity, with 303 cabins. The shipbuilding contract takes origin from the order with Fratelli Onorato Armatori, announced in 2019, but the project and several technical details are different.
These four new units will be 218m long, with a beam of 29.6m and a maximum speed of 25 knots.
Instead of dual fuel, the new ferries will have scrubbers and are likely to be deployed on the routes to Sardinia or Sicily, and to the Balearic Islands.
Like 2020, 2021 was an exceptional year, with an unfavourable operating environment. At the same time, Viking Line experienced some positive events too. MARIELLA was sold in May, and in December the new climate-smart VIKING GLORY was delivered.
Traffic statistics 2021
- +20.1% passengers
- largest increase on Turku–Åland–Stockholm (+51.9%)
- -11.3% on Helsinki–Åland–Stockholm
- +81.8% Mariehamn—Kapellskär with ROSELLA
- -21.1% Helsinki—Tallinn, with VIKING XPRS
- +2.9% cargo units
- +24% cars
Viking Line ended Q3,2021 with good liquidity. To further help implement Viking Line’s strategy for continued profitable growth in a post-pandemic environment, a preferential share issue for existing shareholders was carried out during the autumn, which was a success. There was great interest among shareholders, employees and the general public in the share issue, which was oversubscribed. Initially a total of 8,584,070 shares were subscribed for, which corresponds to about 132.5% of the offer shares. The final number of shares was 6,480,000. As a result, Viking Line generated proceeds of about EUR 51.8 million.
