From the beginning of September the Stena Carrier and Stena Freighter on the Rotterdam-Harwich route will be replaced by two new, smaller vessels.

The two freight vessels Capucine and Severine will be chartered from Cobelfret on a five-year contract.

Pim de Lange, Stena Line area director for the business area North Sea, said: “The market conditions for the Rotterdam-Harwich route have been very tough during the past few years, mainly due to a very competitive environment on the North Sea and the financial instability and recession throughout Europe.

“This has led to a low capacity utilisation of our two current vessels and a consequential poor financial development for the route.”

The two new vessels for the route were built in 2011 and 2012 and have a deck capacity of 1,760 lane metres.

“We need to improve efficiency and reduce our operational costs to be able to increase our competitiveness.

“With this solution we can accomplish that because we will have smaller and cheaper tonnage and, at the same time, we can carry the same volumes that we have today and deliver the same service to our customers”, Pim de Lange concluded.