Analysis of forest industry exports with RoRo ships - Port of Gothenburg

Abstract

The forestry industry play a significant role for Swedish exports, where the sector produce a large variety of products, including paper, pulp and sawn timber. By nature of the products, the industry export large physical volumes of low value goods, adding increasing demands on transport providers. Thus, with high price sensitivity in forestry logistics, most of the products on export are transported by sea, due to favorable economies of scale. For European markets, shortsea shipping (SSS) provides a low cost mode for goods owners to ship products to the UK or to the continent. However, with increased focus on door-to-door transport, other modes of transport such as road and train are also utilized. While providing economies of scale and being a high frequency mode of transport, RoRo short-sea operators located in Port of Gothenburg are striving to become a vital component within intra-European forestry logistics chains. The challenges are many; including integration with other transport modes and infrastructure, forestry producers own logistic systems, and filling the future higher capacity of newer generations of RoRo vessels with transport volumes. Therefore, this case study aim to explore how the RoRo companies can position themselves within this competitive and changing environment. By conducting multiple in-depth interviews with PoG RoRo operators and shippers from the forestry industry, combined with an investigation into relevant theory, important empirical framework could be developed and analyzed. In essence, by identifying important strategies to enhance door-to-door integration, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion on how RoRo short-sea operators can successfully integrate with intra-European forestry logistics chains.