New MSC service to relieve strain on Durban

The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is making a serious effort to relieve the strain on the Durban container terminal (DCT) at Pier 2 – as one berth goes off stream for the next two years, and reduces the terminal’s capacity by 400 000 TEUs a year. Following an appeal from Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) in December, the line has adjusted its service pattern in an attempt to reduce the calls of its vessels and the volume of its transhipments in Durban. This, said Glenn Delve, Durban-based marketing director of the line, takes the form of a weekly pendulum service from Europe and the Mediterranean to the Far East via the SA ports. The line has deployed 15 vessels, each with a capacity of 6 000 TEUs, with the first sailing from Europe being that of the MSC Methoni, having left Antwerp on January 26, and from the Far East scheduled to be the MSC Melissa leaving Fuzho on February 18. The port rotation followed by the vessels from Europe will be: Rotterdam-Hamburg- Felixstowe-Antwerp-Le Havre-Las Palmas-Cape Town-Ngqura-Durban- Port Louis. From the Far East, the rotation is: Fuzho-Xiamen- Kaohsiung-Hong Kong- Chiwan-Singapore-Port Louis-Durban-Ngqura- Cape Town-Las Palmas. Delve is confident that the new schedule will contribute towards reducing delays in the port and reducing transhipment volume through the terminal. “For example,” he told FTW, “cargoes from the Far East bound for Cape Town will now stay on the vessel and travel directly to the Cape, and not be transhipped in Durban. A similar exercise will also be conducted for other cargoes previously transhipping in Durban.”