Container Shipping Line Extends Latin American Reach with New Offices

LATIN AMERICA – TAIWAN – SINGAPORE – Evergreen Line has been busy of late in terms of the Latin American trade for which it sees real potential for growth. Having established offices in Peru, Chile and Mexico over the past few months the Taipei headquartered shipping group which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, has now opened its latest agency in Colombia.

Although Latin America has an abundance of natural resources, a variety of common consumer goods are imported. The pattern of economic trade with East Asia is consequently complementary. The latter has a fully developed manufacturing industry base and, at the same time a requirement for the mineral resources, as well as the fruits, seafood and other agricultural products in which Latin America is so rich. The opposing seasonality of southern and northern hemispheres enhances this symbiosis and extends further the choices for Asian consumers.

In order to expand the container transport options for its customers in this Far East – Latin American west coast trade, Evergreen has teamed up with partners to add two more trans-pacific services; these are in addition to the two currently operated by Evergreen. As a result the range of direct ports of call on offer via, the now four weekly services, has been expanded to Pusan (South Korea), Qingdao and Xiamen (China) and, in Latin America, Ensenada (Mexico) and Lirquen (Chile).

Among the Latin American countries, Chile, with the longest coastline of any country in the world stretching to more than 4,300 kilometres, has an extraordinary range of climate patterns which endows it with a vast array of natural produce from both the land and the ocean. In response to customer demand for exporting such commodities, Evergreen has adjusted its service routings, greatly cutting down the transit time for Chilean exports to East Asia and therefore it says assisting local fresh produce exporters to take advantage of business opportunities.

Meanwhile the Singapore based Synergy Marine Group has taken delivery of the newly built Ever Gifted, an Ultra Large Container Vessel (ULCV) constructed by Japanese shipbuilder Imabari Shipbuilding. Currently under Synergy’s technical management on Evergreen Line’s popular Far East-North Europe and Mediterranean service, the 20,000+ TEU capacity ULCV is one of the largest container ships in service worldwide.

The Singapore-flagged, 199,489 dwt Ever Gifted has an overall length (L.O.A) of 399.98 metres, beam of 58.8 metres, total capacity of 20,388 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) and 1,300 reefer points. Fitted with a fuel optimised MAN B&W 11-cylinder G95ME engine, Ever Gifted offers a service speed of 23.2 knots and weighs in at 217,762 MT.

This week Synergy takes delivery of Ever Grade, a sistership of Ever Gifted from the same yard and Captain Rajesh Unni, CEO and Founder of the group, commented:

“As a leader within the ship management sector, we are thrilled to join the 20,000+ TEU club. The Ever Gifted is one of the highest capacity container ships currently in service. It is also one of the most efficient, enviro-friendly and impressive vessels deployed across Evergreen’s service network. It offers fuel-efficient headhaul options and slow steaming variations on backhauls. We are absolutely delighted to have been entrusted with its safe operation.

“We eagerly look forward to the addition of the next set of ULCVs joining our fleet in the very near future as their owners take advantage of our expertise in the management of the world’s largest container ships.”

In the past few days Evergreen, falling into line with most of the other box carriers, has published details of its Low Sulphur Fuel Compliance Charge (LSFCC) which is being introduced in view of the incoming legislation and graphs and a tariff chart can be seen here.