Höegh Autoliner’s recent delivery of over 1,500 Nissan vehicles to the Port of Gdansk for delivery to the Russian market also marked a new logistics strategy between Nissan Motor RUS and Russian LSP Major Auto Trans.
Since 2004 Major Auto Trans has cooperated with Nissan’s Russian division on international movements, taking deliveries of vehicles to Gdansk direct to Moscow for distribution by local providers. Following a new arrangement initiated by Nissan in August, however, the Russian transport provider is now shipping Nissan vehicles from the Polish port direct to regional dealers in Russia in addition to movements to Moscow.
“Previously we delivered all vehicles to compounds in Moscow and the regional dealers collected them,” Major auto Trans spokeswoman Maria Markelova told Automotive Logistics. “Now Major Auto Trans is collecting them from Gdansk and delivering them directly to regional dealers... as well as delivering to Moscow [for distribution].”
Major Auto Trans now moves Nissan vehicles across the Russian Federation to authorised Nissan dealers and has an agreement with the company to include them on mixed loads with other manufacturers’ vehicles, helping to optimise transport costs and expedite delivery. It is the exclusive service provider for direct Nissan movements from Gdansk to Russian dealerships. “All movements of Nissan cars from Gdansk to Russian dealers are made by Major Auto Trans,” confirmed Markelova.
Nissan also uses BLG for customs clearance and vehicle movements from Gdansk to Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics and Poland. BLG arranges all handling, storage and technical services for Nissan and, for Poland and the Baltics, the distribution to the dealer with the Polish BLG truck fleet. It handled 100,000 vehicles in 2008.
Meanwhile, Höegh Autoliners, which delivered the Nissan vehicles to Gdansk from the Renault Samsung factory in South Korea – the largest shipment this year – has announced its decision to enter the Russian ro-ro market on a full time basis.
At the beginning of this month Höegh Autoliners Agency Russia signed an Agency Agreement with Danish-Russian forwarding company Dealex. Dealex will now act as Höegh Autoliner’s commercial agent for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Höegh Autoliners Agency Russia will also be performing as port agent at Novorossiysk, Vladivostock, Voshtochiny, Nakhodka and Yuzhniy to support vessels calling there.
“Höegh Autoliners aims to serve these markets with a combination of direct deep sea services when volumes allow, and transshipment and short-sea services through other European ports,” spokesman Olav Sollie told Automotive Logistics. “We expect initially that we will mainly use feeder operators calling at Russian ports for the precarriage or oncarriage part of the voyage, but by combining feeder and deep sea services we can provide customers with the best transit time and competitive total cost. Using external feeder providers gives flexibility in choosing the best connection with our own European Outbound and Inbound services and allows us to offer a complete service to our customers.
Sollie added that the company was also looking at developing a service to Ust-Luga in the Baltics and is targeting Novorossiysk in the Black Sea area.
“These markets are relatively new to Höegh Autoliners and are under development. We offer services to car manufacturers, but also to customers in the liner cargo and project cargo segments.”
