CMA upgrades Middle East, South America services

ALAN PEAT AS PART of its global development plans, the shipping line CMA-CGM is extending its services between the Middle East and South America. According to Pamela Yerushalmy, GM of CMA-CGM Shipping Agencies, this follows a linking of North Europe, the Mediterranean, the US East Coast, the Caribbean and Asia with the East Coast of South America. The latest move sees an extension of the line’s routes from Brazil (and Argentina in transhipment) to the Middle East. With three 1 850-TEU vessels already deployed, a fortnightly service is due to be launched from February 13 with the sailing of the Nina Rickmers from Rio de Janeiro – which will be upgraded to a weekly product on March 27 after the four other same-sized ships are added to the fleet. Ports of call on the new service are: Rio de Janeiro-Santos-Paranagua-Itajai-Rio Grande-Salalah-Khor Fakkan-Nhava Sheva-Port Louis-Durban-Rio. Yerushalmy told FTW that a feeder system was to be launched from Salalah to link this service with Red Sea ports, while the Gulf will be linked with the existing Fas feeder system from Khor Fakkan. “We will also be able to match the market’s refrigerated (reefer) container demand,” she added, “with each vessel having a minimum of 300 reefer plugs.”