Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

Short sea shipping:
Fuelled by lorries
The steady growth of the door-to-door transport, especially by lorries and trailers, gives shipping a boost. More and more lorries on the roads means more to sail across the waters between the Nordic countries, but also on longer sailings to other continents, as for example with containers which, however, are also an integrated part of short sea shipping.

Road trailers on ro-ro vessels in the port of Helsinki. Photo: Pär-Henrik Sjöström

No congestion on the Baltic Sea
The route connecting Finland with Germany is one of the busiest on the Baltic Sea. It is a true motorway of the seas with an unlimited number of lanes. Without this efficient sea lane there would be some 800 more heavy vehicles on the transit roads each day.

Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

Avoiding the German Maut
leads customers to Cobelfret
Belgian short sea operator Cobelfret seems to be making a success of the transit sailing from Esbjerg to Zeebrügge in Belgium with ro-ro-vessels. After more than 12 months of sailings the weekly sailing is more and more heavily booked, giving the customers a chance to sailings avoiding the German Maut, the special tax on lorries and trailer traffic on the German road system.

Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

DFDS Tor Line: A fine-meshed web across Northern Europe
It is steady as she goes for the DFDS Tor Line network. The huge ro-ro fleet sails tons of goods across the waters in Northern Europe. Day after day the ships leave with almost full loads or, in fact, often more than full loads. DFDS Tor Line has developed a system with a 90 per cent capacity as normal with the usual quick turnaround, but it is not unusual to have a load of 104 per cent of the 90 per cent capacity on a certain ro-ro.

All operators on the St Petersburg service has trouble with congestion. Here is MSC Patricia, which among other ships has to lie waiting on the road. Photo: Bent Mikkelsen

St Petersburg congestion
causes operator problems
St Petersburg has become a success as the gateway to the Russian market. An increasingly large number of containers have been shipped into the port and its various container terminals. In fact the growth rate for containers was more than 50 per cent for some terminals in the area. This is also part of the problem.

Bro Granite is owned and commercially operated by Broström Tanker AB. The 7,559 DWT, double hull product/chemical tanker was built in 2004 and have full epoxy coated tanks. Photo: Broström Tanker AB

Short sea small tankers:
Finely tuned logistics
Current Russian oil supply politics give the rest of Europe the jitters. From being a reasonably reliable supplier, Russia has used energy to put pressure in its neighbours and thus injected uncertainty into the equation. This will do the small tanker market no good at all.

Grande Italia at Port of Sillamäe. Photo: Anton Gans

Cars at Paldiski reach the horizon
The Nurminen PDI Services’ Terminal at Paldiski South Harbour that was built two years ago, got a companion and a competitor last year – AS Assistor completed a similar terminal next to it. Nurminen spent the first year after the completion of the terminal on starting-up its operations, but this summer the line of cars that reached the horizon and occupied every vacant horizontal surface could be seen at Paldiski.

The Lysbris now carries the DFDS logo on the hull and the funnel. Photo: Jens Grabbe

Lys Line and Samskip
join their short sea forces
DFDS Lys Line and Samskip have joined forces in their European short sea operation. The two operators have started a joint operation between Oslo in Norway and Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, Holland.