UK NEWS

FUEL COSTS FORCE FERRIES TO HIT BRAKES

High speed ferries are being hit by rising fuel costs

Wednesday June 25,2008

By Tom Fullerton

FAST ferries that carry tens of thousands of passengers between Scotland and Northern Ireland every year could be mothballed because of soaring fuel prices.

Stena Line has already introduced a fuel surcharge of £10 per vehicle and £2 for foot passengers on its route between Stranraer and Belfast.

The high-speed ferries are slowing down by a quarter of an hour per trip to save fuel and may soon be replaced by slower conventional ferries.

The trip from Stranraer to Belfast will take 119 minutes, an increase of up to 14 minutes depending on the time of day. This will reduce fuel consumption by eight per cent.

The giant catamarans the size of a football field, which travel at over 40mph, were designed in the Eighties when oil was cheap.

They are powered by gas oil, similar to the kerosene used in jet aircraft, which is double the price of marine fuel. They also use more than twice as much fuel as conventional ferries, which have a 25mph top speed.

Michael McGrath, Stena’s Irish Sea director, said: “As fuel rises, all ferry operators are threatened with major change. Whether the high-speed ferries have a life or not depends on the customer’s willingness to pay.”

Stena blamed high oil prices last year when it withdrew one fast ferry from the North Sea route between Harwich and the Hook of Holland. The price of oil was then was $70 (£38) a barrel, but that has almost doubled since. The North Sea high-speed ferry is being stored in Belfast while a buyer is found, butit may never return to service.

Container ships are also slowing down to save fuel, adding two or three days to the voyage from manufacturing centres in the Far East to European ports.

A study by the DK Group has found that the world’s shipping industry wastes almost three million barrels of oil a day by using ageing vessels. Upgrading these ships could cut global marine fuel consumption by 40 per cent.