2019 Newsletter week 39

Eight Companies Signed Up To Freight Procurement Framework As UK Department of Transport Launches Competition For Brexit Capacity

• 8 firms signed up to freight procurement framework, creating a list of approved operators to provide freight capacity: Brittany Ferries, DFDS, Irish Ferries, P&O Ferries, Seatruck, Stena, Air Charter Services and Eurotunnel.
• Competition launched allowing firms to bid to bring vital medicines into the UK after Brexit on 31 October 2019
• Combined expertise of the high-quality firms appointed guarantees long-term national resilience after Brexit, says Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.

UK shipbuilder Wight Shipyard Co is continuing its successes in the fast ferry sector securing a four-ferry order from an EU based ferry operator.

The order consists of four newbuild ferries, two 20m and two 33m ferries, all to be designed by Australia based One2Three Naval Architects.

Peter Morton, CEO, Wight Shipyard, said: “The key design and build features of these new vessels focuses on ultra-low running cost and fuel efficiency. We are currently working to integrate the boarding design of these brand-new vessels with a number of interesting and unique requirements from the ferry operator.”

The two 20m harbour waterbus ferries will replace older inefficient ferries. They will be designed to service low wharves, providing easy embarkation and debarkation for passengers.

These vessels will have a similar design to Wight’s top performing LochNess Jacobite Maverick 20m day cruise passenger catamaran, which was also designed by One2Three Naval Architects. The 20m is a slower harbour waterbus designed for going stop to stop in and around the port and harbour environment.

The two 33m medium speed vessels meanwhile will service a new commuter and tourist ferry service. It’s a new design for Wight Shipyard, but based on a commuter boat currently used on Sydney harbour.
The build of the ferries is a whole new enterprise for the operator designed to bypass the slow road network and move commuters and tourists quickly and efficiently.

On October 30, 2019, it was eventually decided to have a public tender for the sale and removal of the collapsed NEL LINES’ THEOFILOS (13.572gt/1975).

The ex-TT-Line veteran is laid up and rusting at Karavostasi in the Elefsis bay since 2018, while the starting price for the tender was set to EUR 1,938,546 plus VAT. It seems that the old German build ferry will end up for scrap…

Kerkyra Lines is eventually the mysterious buyer of the small FERRY MISHIMA (271gt/1995) of the Japanese Sakido Kisen Co which operates on the Sasebo-Sakido-Ejima-Hirashima-Tomozumi line.

The small ferry was built in Japan in 1995 (Mukai Shipyard Nagasaki). She is 271gt (77 dwt), 44,24m long, 8,60m wide and 3,39m draught. Her carrying capacity is for 167 passengers, 4 trucks and 2 private cars. She has 2 Daihatsu 6DLM 225 diesel engines (2.000 bhp) and her service speed is 13,8 knots.

The ship was purchased for USD 500.000 and she is expected to be leave Nagasaki in October.
After her conversion in Greece she will probably be introduced on the Corfu-Othonoi run.

Corsican Ports In July: Less Passengers, More Cargo

In its first summer statistics, the ORTC (l’observatoire régional des transports de Corse) has seen a overall drop of passengers and vehicles for the month of July.

• -8.7% Ferry passengers (732,444)
• -8.2% Private Cars (238,396)
• -2.7% Flight passengers (670,254)

Especially the ferry lines coming from France were affected, with a drop of -12.58% (464,323)

The passengers coming by ferry from ‘other countries’ (Italy) were almost status quo, with a -0.98% drop (268,121)

When counting ferry and air together, the downwards trend for July is -5,91% (a total of 1,402,698 persons).

One remark: July had one weekend less compared with last year.

Freight continues to be good, with an 11.5% rise in July (244,000 lane meters).

Last 12 months

When looking at the statistics over the last 12 months, one can see the airlines on the winning hand, with an increase of 3.22% (4,302,482).

Ferry passengers are in decline, with -4.81% (3,963,870).

It seems people are less enthusiast to take their car across. The average number of cars over a period of 12 months has seen a total decline of -4.11% since July 2018.

P&O Ferrymasters will open a 17,000 square meter state-of-the-art warehousing facility in Europoort (Rotterdam) to support its trans-Continental operations. The 10-year contract for the additional facilities will significantly expand the warehousing storage capacity of P&O Ferrymasters at Rotterdam, allowing its customers new storage opportunities and flexibility at one of the business transport hubs of Europe.

The warehouse has close proximity to both the Maasvlakte 2 area in Rotterdam and the Europoort ferry terminal, making it ideally positioned to accommodate the import and export of goods requiring storage for routes on the deep sea, short sea and North Sea. P&O Ferrymasters is equipping the new facility with 16 loading docks and proven warehouse management systems to ensure its customers immediately receive the benefit of extra storage capacity in their end-to-end supply chain solutions.

During the first edition of the Trieste Intermodal Day event, the local port authority released the official statistics for H1. Ro-Ro traffic took  a plunge (-28,06% in terms of tons) compared with the first half of 2018.

More in details: 1,624,907 tons were bound to Trieste while 3,249,983 were transported by DFDS vessels from Italy to Turkey.

In terms of ro-ro units, 57,310 were disembarked in the north Adriatic port while 54,677 were embarked and this means a decrease of 43,636 units handled (-28,04%) compared with the first half of the previous year.

Zeno D’Agostino, head of the Trieste port authority, gives the economic downturn in Turkey as a reason for this decrease.

The Port of Ancona is centrally positioned in the Adriatic region and handles over one million passengers per year.
The local port authority entrusted the consultancy company Risposte Turismo with research work aimed at understanding the performance of the port with regard to ferry traffic, in particular from the point of view of volumes of demand acquired and handled, with the aim of investigating possible competition for traffic by sea or by air.

Desk analysis of the two sectors involved 23 ports and 13 airports which varied greatly in terms of passenger numbers (Rimini, Ancona, Bari, Verona, Pisa, Bologna, Venice, Bergamo, Milan Malpensa, Rome Fiumicino.
On the other side of the Adriatic Sea, the airports considered are Corfu, Dubrovnik, Split and Zadar. Flight passenger numbers in the area rose by 30% (1,4 to 1,9 million) in just three years.

According to the data collected and processed, in the last 10 years, the connecting air traffic between Italy and Croatia, Montenegro and Albania has gradually been on the rise: 800,000 passengers were transported in 2008 and 1,8 million in 2017. The most impressive flow is to and from Albania (almost 1,5 million units). 300,000 passengers are noted to and from Croatia. Ten major airlines have chosen the Adriatic area as a traffic operation zone.

One example of elaboration in this work is this map, which compares the available air and ferry connections to and from the city of Ancona. While there is only one air connection with Tirana, there are many sea routes. Many factors are compared with respect to the two forms of traffic, despite the fact that only five routes are directly comparable since they perfectly overlap.

How Norled Is Moving The Ferry Industry To Zero-Emission [Interview]

How is the marine industry responding to the increasing number of emissions regulations? Interview with Ivan Østvik, project manager at Norled AS.