The new all-water service, jointly operated by TraPac parent company, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. and “K” Line, will expedite the movement of cargo from major Asian ports to key destinations on the U.S. East Coast, including Jacksonville, via the Suez Canal.
The “SVE” (South China/Vietnam – the U.S. East Coast) service is made up of two MOL ships and seven “K” Line ships, with an average capacity of approximately 5,500 twenty-foot equivalents (TEUs). MOL’s alliance partners, Hyundai and APL, as well as “K” Line and its partners, COSCO, Hanjin and Yang Ming, will also make use of the new service.
The introduction of the “SVE” service will enable MOL to offer direct connections from Vietnam/South China/Singapore to the U.S. East Coast, including the weekly call at JAXPORT. This is the third regular weekly rotation that will call on the TraPac terminal, which opened for business in January 2009.
“The arrival of this service is a positive sign of the growth to come,” said JAXPORT Chief Marketing Officer Roy Schleicher. “With the addition of these welcome new partners, JAXPORT will have eight carriers offering direct service to the Far East.”
The Suez Canal Bridge left the Port of Shekou, China in mid-May and visited Yantian, China; Singapore, Halifax, New York and Norfolk before arriving in Jacksonville earlier today. The ship is scheduled to call on Savannah and Singapore before arriving back in Cai Mep, Vietnam.
As the hub for MOL’s U.S. South Atlantic port activities, TraPac offers state-of-the-art post-Panamax container handling systems with a yearly capacity of 800,000 containers. JAXPORT owns and maintains two other cargo terminals, the Blount Island Marine Terminal and the Talleyrand Marine Terminal, in addition to a passenger cruise terminal and a public auto ferry on the St. Johns River.
