Stena Line to Cut 350 More Jobs

Sweden’s largest ferry operator Stena Line is continuing with job cuts to meet the company’s goal of improving the financial results by USD  176 million until 2016, Jesper Waltersson, Head of Corporate Communications at Stena Line told World Maritime News.

Walterson said that Stena Line is aware of reports in media that it aims to cut staff by 800, but that the media failed to mention that this number is connected to the company’s ”change programme initialized at the beginning of 2013 involving a number of cost saving and revenue increasing activities with the goal to improve the financial result by 1,300 MSEK (USD 176m) until 2016.”

”One of our largest costs besides bunker costs is labor costs which naturally are being reviewed in the change process with a long term vision that total staff would need to be reduced by 800. From 2013 and up until now the company already have decreased the number of staff by 450 through different changes in the organisation,” said Waltersson.

Stena Line has not been performing well for a number of years, and that is the main reason for the restructuring, according to Waltersson.

” The reasons behind the insufficient results are several, for example fierce competition from operators with lower costs, the tax free abolishment, high fuel prices etc. And on top of this the fuel costs will increase by around EUR 50 million with the new SECA regulations coming into force on January 1, 2015,” said Waltersson.

In order to combat the increasing fuel costs, Stena Line has decided to convert one of its ships sailing between Gothenburg and Kiel to methanol propulsion. The 240 meter long ferry Stena Germanica will be the first ship in the world to run on methanol in early 2015.

The project is done in co-operation with the engine manufacturer Wärtsilä, the port of Gothenburg, the port of Kiel and the methanol producer and supplier Methanex Corporation.

Stena Germanica will be converted at Remontova Shipyard in Poland starting January 2015, the process is expected to take six weeks and is financially supported by the EU “Motorways of the Seas” initiative. Total project cost is about EUR 22 million (USD 27.6m).

World Maritime News Site