Feature, Freight News, Sea

Bigger ships to boost Stena’s Harwich-Rotterdam route

[ July 21, 2017   //   Chris ]

Stena Line is to switch to larger ships on its Rotterdam (Europoort)/ Harwich route. The current Capucine and Severine which operate twice daily in each direction will be replaced by the larger MV Misada and MV Misina, when present charter contracts expire in January 2018, increasing overall freight capacity by about 20%.

The change coincides with the expected completion of a second berth in Europoort and its development as an important rail freight connection point to and from the UK.

Stena Line North Sea trade director, Annika Hult, said: “We have seen a strong growth in the transport market to the UK over the past several years and we are currently trading at very high utilisation on this route. This has been further fuelled by freight volumes arriving to Europoort by train. The current rail connections between Poznan, Poland and Europoort, which changed ownership earlier this year, are running very well. We believe that this combination of rail and RoRo transportation will only increase in the future.”

She added: “The new vessels will be chartered on a time-charter contract and will consequently be fully manned.  Unfortunately, this will impact our onboard staff. As a company, we want to avoid as many redundancies from happening as reasonably possible and we will be looking at all available options including redeployment to other vessels within Stena Line.”

Tags: Stena