Increased demand led Miami-based Seaboard Marine to employ a larger ship in its weekly Port of New Orleans container service with Latin America.
Seaboard's 974-TEU Seaboard Caribe replaced the 640-TEU Heinrich J. The vessel will call the Port's Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal. Seaboard vessels call on the Port each Wednesday. Other port calls for the service includes St. Tomas, Guatemala, and Puerto Cortes, Honduras, with inland service to Managua, Nicaragua, and San Salvador, El Salvador.
In 2008, Seaboard moved more than 33,000 TEUs through the Port of New Orleans.
'Seaboard Marine's expansion of service to New Orleans is great news for the entire maritime community,' said Gary LaGrange, President and CEO of the Port of New Orleans. 'During these difficult economic times, it demonstrates strong businesses can continue to grow services and expand market share. We applaud Seaboard for their commitment to the Crescent City.'
The larger vessel will allow Seaboard to offer a broader range of services, company officials said.
'The New Orleans market continues to show strong potential to Central America,' said Seaboard Marine President Edward Gonzales. 'Employing the Seaboard Caribe, which has more than 50 percent greater capacity than the vessel it replaced, should allow us to broaden the amounts and types of cargoes carried.'
Seaboard Marine is an ocean transportation company that provides direct, regular service between the United States and the Caribbean Basin, Central and South America. The Miami-based company has 40 vessels in its fleet.
The Port of New Orleans is at the center of the world's busiest port complex ' Louisiana's Lower Mississippi River. Its proximity to the American Midwest via a 14,500-mile inland waterway system, six Class One railroads and the interstate highway system makes New Orleans the port of choice for the movement of cargoes such as steel, rubber, coffee, containers and manufactured goods.
