This morning, the shipping company Samskip's vessel Helgafell set sail from APM Terminal's short-sea terminal in the Port of Gothenburg for the first time. From now on the traffic will call at the terminal every week and then sail on to Faroese Runavik and Reykjavik in Iceland, arriving in Rotterdam four days later, according to the Port of Gothenburg's release.
The service is an important supply channel for Iceland, where everything from vehicles to consumer goods such as electronics, food, clothing, medicine, and furniture is imported via Samskip. The export will mainly consist of fish and fish products, which make up about 40 percent of the value of Iceland's merchandise exports, as well as other important Icelandic export goods such as aluminum and ferrosilicon.
Samskip is a Dutch logistics company with a focus on intra-European traffic within multiple modes of transport. The company’s head office is located in Rotterdam, but was originally founded in Iceland in 1990. Since then, the business has grown continuously with a network that now spans 26 countries. For Iceland, Samskip account for the transport of approximately 40 percent of the country's total foreign trade.
With the new container line, additional direct destinations can be added to the port's growing liner network, strengthening the Port of Gothenburg's role as the guarantor of Swedish industry's access to the world.
Transshipment, LCL consolidation, intermediate storage and containerization of the goods will take place at the warehousing and terminal operator Mimab's rail-connected terminal in the Port of Gothenburg. For Mimab, normally handling forest products, steel and project loads, the handling of the Icelandic cargo constitutes a broadening of the company’s business.
Samskip's ship vessel Helgafell morred at the Port of Gothenburg on Wednesday afternoon and headed for the Faroe Islands and Iceland via Aarhus in Denmark on Thursday morning.