United European Car Carriers

UECC
Industry Transport
Founded 1990
Headquarters Oslo
Number of employees
 350
Website www.uecc.com

United European Car Carriers (UECC) is a Norwegian Roll-on/roll-off shipping line, created in 1990. The company main business is intra Europe short sea carriage of brand new cars and High and Heavy cargo including trucks, buses, wheeled and tracked machineries, trailers.

Company profile

UECC fleet includes 18 vessels, and has been the first Roll-on/roll-off Line to build and deploy an LNG fuelled ship with the intent to reduce the Co2 emissions generated by the maritime shipping industry.[1]

In 2016, the company took delivery of two dual fuel LNG pure car and truck carriers[2] with 1A super Finnish/Swedish ice class, M/S Auto Eco and M/S Auto Energy. The vessels are the largest dual fuel vessels in the world, with a capacity of 4.000 cars each. [3]

The company is also active in Terminal operations, controlling some of the on-shore activities, vehicles handling and storage facilities of ports such as Pasajes and Vigo in Spain, and Zeebrugge in Belgium.[4] Aside from Oslo headquarter, UECC has four other branch offices in Madrid, Setubal, Odessa and Grimsby.

In order to serve all the main European and Japanese car manufacturers, UECC load and discharge in over 25 ports every week. Their main trade routes are Belgium-Germany to the Scandinavian and Baltic countries (including Russia), Mediterranean to Northern Europe (including Greece, Turkey, Italy), Spain and France to UK and Netherlands.[5]

History

UECC is the successor of a previous Norwegian shipping Line established in the 1970s. Before the re-branding in 1990 as UECC, the company was known as Ugland-Aall Car Carriers ("UACC"). Johan Benad Ugland was a shareholder in the group until the selling of its 19 vessels and commercial operation, to focus together with Leif Höegh & Co, on Hoegh-Ugland Autoliners ("HUAL") as a deep sea Roll-on/roll-off carrier.

From 1990, UECC is jointly owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Wilh. Wilhelmsen Wallenius Lines in a 50-50 share.[6]

Main purpose of the acquisition was the plan to offer short sea service to the Japanese car makers that started to open manufacturing plants in Europe, along with the intention to improve the intra Europe feeders service network, by providing extensive connections to a number of destinations not served by oceanic vessels due to size, draft limitations, deviation involved and cargo quantities not justifying the direct calling.

References

  1. ↑ "Maersk joins group monitoring ship emission compliance". www.joc.com.
  2. ↑ "UECC Launches Second Dual-Fuel LNG Car Carrier". World Maritime News. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  3. ↑ "World's first LNG-fuelled car carrier delivered to LR class - Lloyd's Register". www.lr.org.
  4. ↑ "Port of Zeebrugge invests in initiatives for clean ships". 3 January 2017.
  5. ↑ "UECC launches short sea service - heavyliftpfi.com". www.heavyliftpfi.com.
  6. ↑ "Maritime News". www.marinelink.com.
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