Feature, Freight News, Sea

Mann Lines adds Rotterdam – updated

[ December 20, 2019   //   Chris ]

Mann Lines Ro-Ro service will add Rotterdam to its regular liner service, with the first call on 22 January at the Broekman Distriport Terminal.

The schedule will be Harwich – Rotterdam – Cuxhaven – Paldiski – Turku – Bremerhaven – Harwich.

The service can handle all types of cargo including trailers, cars, mobile machines, containers as well as timber, steel and other conventional cargo.

Mann Lines general manager David Brooks told FBJ that, since the introduction of the new larger vessel, the Freyja, there had been a certain amount of capacity available in the schedule. After careful study of different options, a call at Broekman’s terminal in Rotterdam had been added.

Brooks added that looming Brexit was also a factor in the decision to seek new markets in Continental Europe, although he was not unduly concerned about the immediate effect on trade to and from the UK. The new call would cater mainly for traffic between Rotterdam, Finland and the Baltics, including connecting traffic between the Baltic region and Russia via Rotterdam to Africa, where there is a brisk trade in secondhand vehicles from the former Soviet region.

Mann Lines currently operates from the small Navyard port in Harwich which its parent company owns. The owner has submitted planning permission to redevelop the site for waterfront housing, but Brooks said that plans were in place to move the operation to Hutchison-owned Harwich International port if and when that became necessary.

He said: “It is an advantage to own your own port; you can work the ship when you want to, and I can look out of my office window and see the operation.”

On the other hand Harwich Navyard is close to capacity and the 200m long Freyja is close to the port’s physical limit, without expensive rebuilding, although there are no immediate plans to replace her.

 

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