Stena SeaLine adds second ship and another Turkish port

This month (January) saw Stena SeaLine add the ro-ro vessel Lazio to its fleet, joining the Sea Partner which has been operating the service from its start in 2011.

Now, the shipping line which is a partnership between Stena Line and Sea Lines, has confirmed that the second vessel will also make a weekly departure every monday from Port of Derince, in Turkey, in addition to the existing port calls at Haydarpasa, Istanbul, Turkey and Ilyichevsk, Ukraine.

Derince is well known as a port which specialises in high and heavy shipments, and the partners behind the Stena Sealine venture are confident that this will give a further boost to its development of a fixed schedule ro-ro service for high and heavy shipments between Turkey and Ukraine.

The service was initiated in March 2011, by a new shipping company called Sea Lines. Last year, Stena Line and Sea Lines joined together in a partnership and Stena SeaLine became the new official name.

The company says that the volumes and development achieved to date have encouraged it to add a second vessel.

Mathias Eklund, general manager of Stena SeaLine says that the fixed day schedules gives certainty to shippers of high and heavy cargoes; and with four departures per week, a considerable amount of flexibility in shipment scheduling and planning. "Knowing, to the hour, when a ship is going to arrive, makes shoreside planning much more efficient. We tailor the ship's schedules to fit customs working patterns in Ukraine in order to make port formalities as time-efficient as possible.

"We are seeing a considerable amount of super heavy equipment moving from countries in the former CIS out to Turkey for on-carriage to North Africa; as well as significant volumes of semi-specialised machinery; such as dump trucks and garbage compactors, moving from Turkey to the CIS. Security is a major issue and 95 percent of the trailer cargoes is accompanied; so it helps that the vessels have passenger accommodation."