News
Geest North Sea Line restructures its Scandinavian and Baltic operations to meet demand for larger shortsea shipping capacity
Geest North Sea Line, which was acquired by the Icelandic company Samskip in 2005, is restructuring its operations in the Scandinavian and Baltic markets, including Russia, increasing capacity and providing for better integration between these former Samskip services and the established Geest intermodal network based on Rotterdam.
Key aspects of the new structure include major changes to the company's Swedish and Latvian services, larger ships, a switch from Terneuzen to Rotterdam, the establishment of a hub operation based on Helsingborg and new direct calls in Denmark and Lithuania.
Currently Geest links the UK, North Continent and Sweden with a weekly service calling at the ports of Hull in the UK, Terneuzen in the Netherlands and Wallhamn and Halmstad in Sweden.
Geest also provides a daily rail service operated by its sister company Van Dieren Maritime that links Herne in Germany with Almhult and Norrköping in Sweden.
Geest's weekly Latvian service links the port of Riga with Moerdijk in the Netherlands and Hull and Blyth in the UK. A southbound call in Sölvesborg, Sweden, is also offered.
With effect from early April, the Swedish service will be totally revised. Ports of call will become Hull, Rotterdam, Ǻlborg in Denmark, and Helsingborg and Varberg in Sweden while a 500 TEU ship will drawn from the Geest pool to replace the 350TEU vessel that currently operates on this service, thus providing a 50% boost in capacity.
The port rotation will then become Hull - Rotterdam - Ǻlborg - Helsingborg -Varberg - Hull.
May will see a similar process take place with the Latvian service. Out will go Moerdijk, Blyth, Sölvesborg and Riga. In will come Helsingborg, thus giving a twice weekly link between the new hub port and Hull; Ventspils, which replaces the Riga call; and Klaipeda in Lithuania. Again, capacity will be increased by about 50%, two 350 TEU ships replacing the existing two 210TEU vessels. The new port rotation will be Hull - Helsingborg - Ventspils - Klaipeda - Helsingborg - Hull.
Rotterdam will be connected to Latvia and Lithuania by transhipping over Helsingborg, the two services being synchronised to provide a same-day connection.
Gerard de Groot, Commercial Director of Geest North Sea Line, explains the changes:
"The switch of the Swedish service from Terneuzen to the Rotterdam Shortsea Terminal (RST) is particularly significant as it means we can plug in directly to the established road, rail and barge service network already used by Geest for its UK, Irish and Spanish services. These overland and inland waterway connections are extremely important as they extend Geest's geographic coverage southwards to southern Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and beyond.
"The Rotterdam call will also enable us to link Denmark, Sweden, the Baltic states and Russia with Ireland and Spain by transhipping between our services at RST."
Mr de Groot continues:
"There are also other efficiency gains to be realised. For example, we will have direct access to the Geest pool of containers in Rotterdam and can easily interchange equipment, including ships if need be, between this and our other services. Furthermore, we can use any spare slots on the Hull - Rotterdam leg of the Swedish service to complement capacity on our daily dedicated Hull - Rotterdam shuttle."
With a twice-weekly service between the UK and Sweden, Geest has great expectations, explains Mr de Groot:
"Traditionally this route has been dominated by ro-ro but we believe our 45ft palletwide containers and slick port operations can help us secure a major share of this market. Helsingborg is perfect in this respect and we have also included Varberg on the schedule. We have a number of key accounts in the vicinity of Varberg. Under our Samskip brand we already operate our Icelandic service out of Varberg and have good experience with covering the mid and North Swedish market from this port. And, of course, Varberg is well located for the important Gothenburg market."
Meanwhile Denmark is in effect a new destination for Geest although it has offered a limited service in the past. Now though with direct weekly calls in Ǻlborg for Jutland and by using bridge and ferry connections from Helsingborg to Copenhagen and surrounding areas, Geest is moving into overdrive. Mr de Groot believes Denmark will very quickly become a significant market for the company.
Switching the Latvian service from Riga to Ventspils is a positive move too, says Mr de Groot:
"Ventspils has plenty of space and capacity whereas we were encountering problems in Riga. Ventspils serves much the same hinterland as Riga and has good rail links to Moscow."
He also notes that with a larger, faster ship on the Latvian service, Geest can also add the extra call in Helsingborg that doubles frequency between the UK and Sweden as well as enabling Klaipeda to be added to the network for the very first time, with the emerging markets in Lithuania and the hinterlands in Belarus and Ukraine.
Hubbing in Helsingborg
Turning to the decision to set up the hub operation in Helsingborg, Mr de Groot states:
"We are increasing capacity on our Scandinavian and Baltic services by at least 50% but this is really just the beginning. The restructuring of our service network in this region is geared to carrying many more containers than we do today. There is a strong demand for shortsea shipping capacity that we believe will grow further as road haulage rates increase and reliability becomes a serious issue. Shortsea shipping can deliver the quality of service that supply chain managers need and at a price which is acceptable to them. In addition our multimodal services ensure environmental efficiency.
"We felt that to hub in Sweden was the best way to serve the many ports we need to cover in the Baltic and Scandinavia. We looked at the various options and Helsingborg clearly has everything we need. It has space and spare capacity, modern facilities and it has excellent rail connections not only with all of the major cities in Sweden but also with Norway. Moreover it is geographically well situated to ensure fast transit to and from the Baltic states."
Mr de Groot also stressed that Russia was very much seen as a growth market for Geest:
"We already use third-party feeders to cover shipments to St Petersburg and we will continue to do this via Helsingborg. Operating our own sailings into St Petersburg is currently under study.
"For Moscow, we were using rail and road via Riga but Ventspils is equally suitable for rail and even better for road since we will have access to trucking controlled by Van Dieren Maritime. Klaipeda also has excellent rail links to Moscow and other inland destinations in Russia, adding an extra string to our bow.
"We will offer a transit time of seven days from Rotterdam to Moscow and expect our reliability to be significantly better than many existing service offerings."
In April/May 2006, Geest expects to take delivery of two new 812TEU container vessels with a further pair due for delivery in the autumn. Sisterships to Geeststroom and Geestdijk, delivered in 2005, they have been designed to carry a full load of 45ft palletwide containers. With 90ft long holds, they are also able to carry 30ft containers, commonly used in Europe for the transportation of bulk commodities, with no loss of cargo space. The ships can of course load standard 20ft and 40ft containers including tanks. Geeststroom and Geestdijk are currently operating on the Rotterdam ¿ Tilbury route and the delivery of the new ships will allow smaller vessels to be cascaded down onto new and existing services such as those to Scandinavia and the Baltic.
According to Samskip, the company intends to upgrade its shortsea container fleet during the next few years. A batch of 600 newbuild 45ft containers is currently on its way from China to Europe and another 850 will be produced very shortly. Furthermore it will add more and larger vessels to its fleet to provide a stable platform for growth.
Contact - Geest North Sea Line
Gerard de Groot
Commercial Director
Tel: +31 10 491 23 45
www.geest.com
Contact - Dunelm Public Relations
David Cheslin or Sharon Cunningham
Tel: +44 20 7480 0600
www.dunelmpr.co.uk
