The UK based Coastlink Short Sea Shipping and Sustainable Logistics Network held its twenty-third annual Conference in Bilbao’s Maritime Museum running from April 29th to 30th.The principal sponsor was Port of Bilbao. Report by Howard Knott.
The Conference themes included The Renaissance of short Sea Shipping, infrastructure Development at Ports to support Short Sea Shipping, with a focus on energy transition within ports, and the expansion of Green and Digital corridors. I have the privilege of being asked to speak at the Conference taking the theme of the Short Sea Challenges faced by living and trading on an offshore European island.
Though Coastlink is UK based, there was a strong continental Europe flavour to the event with speakers from several Atlantic Arc Ports and shipping lines and a very broadly based attendance leading to useful presentations and lively networking interaction. The dominant thread running through the conference was sustainable multimodal shipping.
While Nathan Armody, Senior Marketing Manager at Peel Ports Group welcomed the increased use of rail freight in supply chains through British ports, he expressed concern that the potential development of short sea shipping routes would be hampered by the implementation of the EU Environmental Trading System (ETS). This concern was picked up by several later speakers who were concerned that the extra costs involved, risked pushing European freight transport back onto the roads which already carry over 50% of inter-EU freight.
A hot topic was the availability at ports of a sufficiently wide range of fuels to meet the needs of new vessels operating on alternative fuels. There appeared to be a general view that the installation of adequate electric shore power was an urgent priority for all ports. Uwe Augustat from Siemens pointed out that a typical cruise ship berthed alongside generates emissions from its diesel-powered generators equivalent to 20,000 cars. A shore installation delivering 5 megavolt-amperes (MVA) is required to power a typical ferry, one with 8 MVA, a standard container ship and 12MVA for a Cruise Liner. A common difficulty facing Port Operators seeking to put in Shore power facilities is the weakness of the available National Grid infrastructure. Maurice Delattre from the Port of Amsterdam spoke about converting rubbish to biofuel and recently developed service shipping CO2 to Norway for burial and another shipping hydrogen from Norway to Amsterdam.
My own paper to the Conference focused on the challenges of our location and port and shipping service developments that generate a positive picture for trading with Ireland. Two specifics that raised some interaction with the floor were the Holyhead Port closure and the risk of Dublin Port running out of space by 2040.
I had more informal conversations with other participants at the event. These included with Elana Seco, President of the Spanish Short Sea Promotion Centre, who expressed some caution about companies near-shoring major cargo volumes to North Africa where political stability is not guaranteed. She did acknowledge that the major investment by European Ro-Ro and Lo-Lo carriers in trans-Mediterranean services may stimulate a better political climate.
Met with Enrique Soriano Casas Ellerman City Liners ‘ Sales Manager in Spain and he told me that they have just opened a direct Leixoes and Bilbao services to Dublin working with Doyle Shipping. From Bilbao Ellerman has rail links with Madrid, Valencia and other cities, but for them and other lines the further development of rail links to the ports is constrained by track access restrictions as the rail passenger traffic also grows. Wim Wigerinck, Commercial manager at CLdN spoke enthusiastically about the continuous development of their Irish services. They have just opened a Zeebrugge/Cork/Dublin Lo-Lo service and have upgraded the Dublin/Liverpool operation. Andre Mast, Commercial Director at A2B-online informed about their operations out of the Nederland’s second Lo-Lo port, Moerdijk and the traffic flows that they are developing from there to Ireland using the BG Freightline service. Blasco Majorana, Line Manager at Finnlines, spoke about their developing relationship with Rosslare Europort. Fabrice Turquet, Freight Sales Manager, Spain and Portugal at Brittany Ferries confirmed that their rail freight service or trailers on the Cherbourg/Mouguerre route is now running, and is available for trailers shipped on any carrier through Cherbourg.
All-in-all it was a very useful conference and networking opportunity. Next year’s event with be in Hull.