James T. McDermott, Jr., Executive Director of the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, is pleased to announce that Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the second largest steamship line in the world and a regular user of PRPA's Packer Avenue Marine Terminal since mid-2006, has initiated a service between the Port of Philadelphia and several major ports on the West Coast of South America.
The outbound/exporting component of this new service includes port calls in Philadelphia; Freeport, Bahamas; Cartagena, Colombia; Callao, Peru; Valparaiso, Chile; and San Vicente, Chile. The inbound/importing component of the service will include ship calls in Valparaiso; San Vicente, Freeport, and Philadelphia.
Further, via its hub in Freeport, MSC offers additional connections to Asia; South Africa, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean, both coasts of South America, India, and Australia/New Zealand. With the addition of this new MSC service to the Port of Philadelphia's roster of container services, the Port now offers regular, direct container service to both the East and West Coasts of South America, via MSC and other liner services that call at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal. PRPA also offers extensive breakbulk services to South America.
'The recent announcement that a deeper Delaware River is on the way has already encouraged our current port customers to enhance their level of business here,' said Mr. McDermott. 'We are very pleased that MSC has initiated this new service at our largest and busiest facility, and are optimistic that other current users of the Port, and well as prospective users, will soon follow suit.'
PRPA's Director of Marketing Sean Mahoney is also pleased at this new development. 'Regular, comprehensive, and affordable service is the name of the game in thee maritime industry,' said Mr. Mahoney. Thanks to MSC, those descriptions now apply to our South American connections now more than ever before.'
