Pre-Brexit Peak Volume & Quay Rent Surcharge

For the last couple of years Samskip has proactively invested in North Sea container shipping services, offering our clients flexible solutions. This service with 14 weekly sailings linking Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Gent to the UK ports of Hull, Tilbury, Grangemouth and Belfast is a strong asset that can support our customers during the possible critical time associated with the announced Brexit. 

We have the largest European multimodal network operating a wide range of vessels, containers, trucks and rail systems, that are deployed on a long-term basis to give both scale and certainty to the carriage of your goods throughout the year. 

As we move towards March 29th the demand for our transport services avoiding the ferry ports of southern England is increasing. Furthermore, we foresee that demand will outstrip supply before abruptly reducing in April as stock is first built up in February and March and then consumed in April before a restart at some point in late April / May.

To minimize the impact of the Brexit exceptional situations, we redeploy assets to alternative uses where possible. However, with all the measures taken we cannot anticipate all the consequences of this process, but we need to be sure that we will protect a reliable service for our customers and as such it is imperative to mitigate the risk by introducing a fee – the Pre-Brexit Peak Volume Surcharge.

The volume to which the surcharge will apply will be the volume in excess of the average weekly volumes moved with Samskip in 2018 for each customer. A Surcharge Free Weekly Allocation will be offered to you as a surcharge exempt weekly capacity allocation on all cargo with load dates during February and March 2019.
The Samskip Pre-Brexit Peak Volume Surcharge will apply to each individual shipment loading beyond your Surcharge Free Weekly Allocation. 

Pre-Brexit Peak Volume Surcharge calculation per load will be: EUR 243  
For freight payments in GBP, the surcharge will be calculated at the equivalent of the exchange rate on January 15th. Please note that the Pre-Brexit Surcharge applies to all shipments to and from the UK until 1st of April. 

Furthermore, we anticipate the market intention to increase safety stock in containers. To facilitate your potential structural storage requirements we can propose, on a case by case basis, non-pallet wide 40ft equipment where we can quote based on storage location, terms and condition.

To protect our capacity in supporting our client structural volumes, while we keep the default free days equal we must increase the storage cost for 45ft dry-, curtainsided- and reefer containers and for flat-racks, after the Contractual free days. So, from 1st of February we will apply a Quay Rent Surcharge. These changes apply for collections and shipments to and from the UK, including Northern Ireland.

To be added on top of current charge:Quay Rent Surcharge applied after contractual free days: EUR 98 per calendar day.
Please note that this amendment in quay rent conditions will be valid from 1st February until further notice. We expect to return to normal conditions when the disruption has settled down.

In preparation for Brexit, we have secured access to additional vessel-, rail and truck capacity to be able to scale up throughout the supply chain and we'll make every effort to deliver the service levels you have come to expect from Samskip. Also, to minimize the effects on your business, we encourage you to discuss your requirements for Q1 2019 in detail with your Samskip representative at the earliest opportunity. 

We will continue in working towards diminishing the impact as much as is possible and will keep you updated about any further developments of the current situation.

We thank you for trusting us with your business and greatly value your understanding.

Jerome Feuvrier
CCO SAMSKIP