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West Med developMents<br />
Motorways of the Sea<br />
A busy fall for the West Med Ro/Ro network. While the links<br />
upgraded in late October, since early November Cagliari entered the<br />
Grimaldi<br />
Suardiaz<br />
joint-venture<br />
The Grimaldi Group and Flota Suardíaz of<br />
Spain have forged a joint venture to develop<br />
a Motorway of the sea linking Livorno<br />
and Barcelona. Under the agreement, as from<br />
1 January 2009, the newly incorporated joint<br />
venture called Grimaldi Suardíaz is to operate<br />
the Ro/Ro-Pax vessel Florencia. This ship is<br />
currently operating the same three-times-a-<br />
week service under the Grimaldi Lines flag.<br />
Built in 2004 the Florencia is capable of trans-<br />
porting up to 1,000 passengers, 2,230 linear<br />
metres of Ro/Ro cargo and 160 cars. The new<br />
alliance aims to develop the trade further<br />
and, should market conditions improve, the<br />
joint venture would in fact deploy a second<br />
vessel on the route upgrading it to a daily fre-<br />
quency.<br />
The Livorno/Barcelona Route is part of the<br />
so-called “Long bridge” service operating<br />
on the trades between Spain and Portugal on<br />
the Western side and Greece and a large part<br />
of the Balkan region on the Eastern side. The<br />
Long Bridge offers haulage companies a sin-<br />
gle ferry ticket for the two legs by sea: from<br />
Patras or Igoumenitsa to Venice or Ancona<br />
onto Minoan Lines ferries and from Civitavec-<br />
chia or Livorno to Barcelona on Grimaldi Lines<br />
or Grimaldi Suardíaz and vice versa.<br />
4 GNE WS<br />
North Europe<br />
Baltic Sea<br />
North America<br />
South<br />
America<br />
West Africa<br />
Barcelona<br />
Valencia<br />
Since early November the Group<br />
has substantially strengthened<br />
two sets of services supporting the<br />
development of trades to and from<br />
Sicily. Both the Civitavecchia/Catania<br />
service, linking the Centre of Italy to<br />
the Sicilian port, and the Genoa/Cata-<br />
nia service that connects the island to<br />
the North West of Italy (as well as to<br />
Europe’s Central regions), each ser-<br />
vice has been improved by upgrad-<br />
ing their frequency from two to three<br />
times a week. In both cases, this cor-<br />
responds to an increase in transport<br />
capacity of one third on each route.<br />
Both lines were set up in 2006 and,<br />
Toulon<br />
Sicilian Ties<br />
Grow Stronger<br />
Genoa<br />
Porto<br />
Vecchio<br />
Cagliari<br />
Tunis<br />
since then, have seen a substantial<br />
growth in volumes transported. They<br />
are served by three Ro/Ro vessels of<br />
the Eurocargo class, each having a<br />
capacity of up to 170 trucks or trailers<br />
and 400 cars. These ships are also fit-<br />
ted with cabins for up to 50 drivers.<br />
Through Civitavecchia, cargo from<br />
Catania can connect to the entire<br />
Grimaldi Network, either towards the<br />
Western Mediterranean (Barcelona,<br />
Toulon, Tunis), the Eastern Mediter-<br />
ranean as well as towards Northern<br />
Europe, West Africa, South and North<br />
America. Catania is also directly con-<br />
nected to Malta and Libya.<br />
Livorno<br />
Civitavecchia<br />
Tripoli<br />
Salerno<br />
Palermo<br />
Catania<br />
Malta<br />
Misratah