NIPPON YUSEN Kaisha (NYK), has ordered four new 6,200-TEU containerships in Japan at Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries.
The move to order the new ships in Japan, rather than in comparatively cheaper South Korean yards, is seen as a positive support for Japan's ailing shipbuilding industry, which has suffered of late because of dollar/yen exchange rates, and consequent spiraling prices.
Earlier in the year, NYK booked five 6,000-TEU post-panamax ships at Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea. All nine ships will be delivered through 2002 and early 2003, but there is no confirmation on their intended trade lanes.
Meanwhile, Malaysia International Shipping Co (MISC), is expected to shortly approach a number of shipyards in Japan and South Korea and will ask for tenders to build up to four new 5,600-TEU post-panamax ships
This will MISC's first move into the post-panamax field. The company's largest ships are currently 4,400 TEUs.
OOCL beefs up Grand Alliance service
OOCL WILL deploy up to 12 vessels in the Grand Alliance Asia/Europe strings by the end of this year, according to a company statement made in early June.
Importantly, the number will include four 5,600-TEU vessels recently delivered, or in the course of delivery, to OOCL this year. The introduction of these vessels will run in line with other developments on the Asia-Europe trade lanes, including the addition of calls at Jakarta and Xiamen on one or more of the strings, says OOCL.
On the Atlantic, where the final touches are being put to the new Grand Alliance-Americana Ships grouping, offering five separate strings, OOCL will introduce two 2,950-TEU chartered vessels onto the North Atlantic-South Atlantic butterfly service.
This service will deploy a total of eight ships, around the same capacity.
Five of those will come from P&O-Nedlloyd, and the other from Hapag-Lloyd. The OOCL vessels will be named OOCL Harmony and OOCL Haven. Four of the five P&O-Nedlloyd vessels will be switched from the transpacific's China Korea Express (CKX) service, where they will be replaced by larger tonnage.
Mitsui-OSK links Asia with Africa
MITSUI-OSK LINES is setting up a dedicated feeder service in West Africa to extend its coverage of the marketplace.
The new feeder will link up with the joint Mitsui-OSK-P&O-Nedlloyd service between Asia and South and West Africa.
The mainline service deploys 10 ships, each around 1,500-TEU capacity, of which five each are operated by the partner lines. The new West Africa feeder will be run by Mitsui-OSK, with one 350-TEU ship with sailings every 12 days.
Initially, it will serve the ports of Abidjan, Lagos, Douala, Takoradi, Abidjan. It will allow Mitsui-OSK to move cargo from Nigeria, French Cameroun and Ghana into Abidjan, which is acting as a hub port to serve the Asia-South Africa-West Africa-Indian sub-continent-Asia service.
The mainline service operates every 7.5 days between Shanghai, Busan, Keelung, Hong Kong, Singapore, Durban, Luanda, Lagos, Cotonou, Lome, Tema, Abidjan, Capetown, Durban, Port Louis, Colombo, Singapore, Shanghai.
Lloyd Triestino joins transpacific trades
LLOYD TRIESTINO will enter the transpacific trades this summer by taking slots on three Evergreen services.
The Evergreen services will be the East and Westbound Round-the-World services, and the Transpacific North Service (TPN). Through the TPN slot allocation, Lloyd Triestino will have slot allocations that allow the establishment of a PNW service.
The service will start next month, and will cover the Japanese ports of Osaka and Tokyo eastbound into Tacoma and Vancouver, the US/Canada west coast ports, back to Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. It could later be extended to include Kaohsiung and Hong Kong.
Through the Evergreen Round-the-World services, Lloyd Triestino will start to serve the Asia-US east coast-Asia trade lanes for the first time. A US east coast link and a PSW service will be formed through part of the RTW network. Eastbound, this will cover Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Charleston, Baltimore and New York. Westbound, port coverage will include New York, Norfolk, Charleston, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, and Hakata.