K Line European Sea Highway Services GmbH (KESS) is a

roll-on/roll-off Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or using ...

shipping line based in Bremen,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and is a subsidiary of the Japanese shipping line

K Line is a Japanese transportation company. It owns a fleet that includes dry cargo ships (bulk carriers), container ships, liquefied natural gas carriers, Ro-Ro ships, tankers, and container terminals. It used to be the fourteenth largest contai ...

Company overview

KESS was founded by K Line Tokyo in 2003 and operates with a fleet of 11 car carrier vessels in Western and Northern Europe. KESS specialises in feeder traffic, known as short sea shipping, between the large car terminals in Bremerhaven and Zeebrugge and various smaller car terminals in the North Sea and Baltic Sea area. It transports around 800,000 vehicles per year. KESS has its roots in a joint venture established in 1991 between KESS parent company "K" Line Tokyo and the former Bremen - based automotive logistics company and shipowner Egon H. Harms. KESS was created by to both offer an intra Europe short sea service to Japanese car makers manufacturing cars in European plants, and to provide feeder carriage to smaller European ports not called at by larger oceanic vessels. The company in fact specializes in the maritime transport and distribution of cargo such as automobiles, trucks, trailers, Mafi roll trailers, heavy construction machineries and further types of rolling cargo. The main trade lanes are European, and specifically ports in North Continent Europe, including

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, UK,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...

, Baltic region and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. The company operates 11

ships.

Fleet

(Status: January 2023)''The Fleet''
kess.kline.de, retrieved 22 January 2020.

Facts and accidents

KESS ships are distinguished from those of its parent company

by having their hull painted in red as opposed to the grey of K Line. On 21 September 2017, Greenpeace activists attempted to block the discharging of

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...

Suv A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a car classification that combines elements of road-going passenger cars with features from off-road vehicles, such as raised ground clearance and four-wheel drive. There is no commonly agreed-upon definiti ...

and cars into Sheerness port, disrupting for several hours the operations of ''mv Elbe Highway''. On 23 July 2018,

car carrier Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels or usin ...

vessel ''Makassar Highway'' ran aground at full speed in the

Tjust Tjust () was one of the small lands of Småland, Sweden. It was divided into the hundreds of Tjust Northern Hundred and Tjust Southern Hundred. It corresponds to Västervik Municipality and the southern part of Valdemarsvik Municipality. E ...

archipelago near

Loftahammar Loftahammar () is a locality situated in Västervik Municipality, Kalmar County Kalmar County () is a county or '' län'' in southern Sweden. It borders the counties of Kronoberg, Jönköping, Blekinge and Östergötland. To the east in the Ba ...

, Sweden, causing an oil spill.

Ships gallery

File:Liesel 15-06-2012 KESS Danube Highway auf der Ostsee.JPG, mv Danube Highway File:2017-06-11 Autotransporter MAIN HIGHWAY im Nord-Ostsee-Kanal (2139).jpg, mv Main Highway File:Elbe Highway (ship, 2005).jpg, mv Elbe Highway File:Weser Highway Roro.jpg, mv Weser Highway File:Luftaufnahmen Nordseekueste 2013 05 by-RaBoe 616.jpg, KESS vessel

References

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External links