Booming trade between Asia and South America has led Maersk Line to add capacity to its services between the two regions with a new fleet of bigger box ships, IFW reports.
Soren Karas, head of South China for Maersk, said delivery of the 7,500teu ships had begun and all the ships would be on line by 2013.
The Danish shipping giant placed an order, worth about US$2.4 billion for 16 of the ships with South Korean shipbuilder Daewoo in 2008.
The vessels are twice the size of the panamax container ships that previously served the trade.
“They have been custom-made for South American routes,” Karas said.
“They are shorter and wider, but have the draught of a panamax,” he added, which allows the vessels access to draught-restricted ports in South America.
The ships also have 1,700 plugs for refrigerated containers, about double the number of electric connections a comparable boxship was likely to have installed.
Karas said this reflected the larger volume of refrigerated cargo the ships were to carry, plus an anticipated rise in the volumes of poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit that Maersk expected to carry from South America to Asia.
Karas said the refrigerated cargo trade from South America was “definitely a market that is growing”.
He pointed out that container volumes between Asia and Latin America were growing at about 20% a year – compared with an average of 6-7% for container volumes globally – a level forecast to continue for at least the next five years.
Soren Karas, head of South China for Maersk, said delivery of the 7,500teu ships had begun and all the ships would be on line by 2013.
The Danish shipping giant placed an order, worth about US$2.4 billion for 16 of the ships with South Korean shipbuilder Daewoo in 2008.
The vessels are twice the size of the panamax container ships that previously served the trade.
“They have been custom-made for South American routes,” Karas said.
“They are shorter and wider, but have the draught of a panamax,” he added, which allows the vessels access to draught-restricted ports in South America.
The ships also have 1,700 plugs for refrigerated containers, about double the number of electric connections a comparable boxship was likely to have installed.
Karas said this reflected the larger volume of refrigerated cargo the ships were to carry, plus an anticipated rise in the volumes of poultry, meat, vegetables and fruit that Maersk expected to carry from South America to Asia.
Karas said the refrigerated cargo trade from South America was “definitely a market that is growing”.
He pointed out that container volumes between Asia and Latin America were growing at about 20% a year – compared with an average of 6-7% for container volumes globally – a level forecast to continue for at least the next five years.