At the end of last week, the OSLO EXPRESS (3,322 teu) from the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd was the first vessel in the new Far-East-Europe EU 5 liner service of the Grand Alliance to sail for the Port of Hamburg. The OSLO EXPRESS is one of a total of eight container vessels of the new fifth Far-East container liner service of the Grand Alliance cleared at the HHLA Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA) each week. On the occasion of the first entry, Uwe Claassen (Head of the Nautical Centre) presented the captain of the OSLO EXPRESS, P. Akther, with the admiralty coat-of-arms of the Port of Hamburg.
The new liner service focuses on Central and South China as well as South East Asia and links the Chinese ports of Shanghai, Ningbo and Xiamen as well as the city state of Singapore to the northern European continent. The ports of destination in northern Europe are Hamburg, Amsterdam and Southampton.
In addition to the OSLO EXPRESS from Hapag-Lloyd, in the EU-5 the newbuild WAN HAI 605 (6,039 teu) chartered by MISC and the following vessels with an average cargo capacity of 4.700 teu are also being deployed: NYK LEO, OOCL AMERICA, BUNGA PELANGI DUA (MISC), SOUTHAMPTON EXPRESS (Hapag-Lloyd), MISC MERLION, META (OOCL). The eight units deployed enable a round trip to be covered in 56 days.
Containerized traffic with Asia reached a total volume of 5.6 million containers (teu) in Hamburg in 2007. The People's Republic of China is by far the most important trading partner in containerized traffic for the port on the Elbe River, with 3.2 million containers (teu). Following the launch of the new EU-5 service, the number of container line r services destined for Hamburg has risen from 28 to 29, and the Port of Hamburg is extending its position as the leading European container port in the Far East/China service. In traffic with China alone, 26 container services offer direct connections between Hamburg and Chinese ports.
