Richards Bay call added on Far East-West Africa service

The current boom in commodity exports to the Far East has persuaded Maersk Line to deviate one of its Far East-West Africa- Far East services into Richards Bay to collect containerised exports from South Africa. “Demand to the Far East is pumping at the moment,” said KwaZulu Natal GM, Carl Lorenz. “It’s commodity-based, and has been there since before the beginning of August. I haven’t noticed any slackening in demand to now, and don’t expect any drop-off – certainly until the end of October.” Most of this is coming from Chinese orders for raw materials for its industrial stockpiles – which have been somewhat used up after China stopped stockpiling at the beginning of the year. This was accompanied at the time by the Safari consortium service between SA and the Far East – in which Maersk and sister line Safmarine are major players – cutting its second string, and leaving no spare capacity on this route. But Lorenz saw this new service through Richards Bay providing his line with immediately available tonnage, perfectly suited to fulfilling this demand from mainland China. The leg between West Africa and the Far East will now be broken by the RB call – from where the ships will sail to Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, then making two calls in China, at Shanghai and Ningbo. Lorenz noted other sales benefits. “It will be the only dedicated container service calling at Richards Bay,” he said. “It will give direct access to the Far East market from the RB area, will offer a quicker transit time compared to shipping out of Durban and will show cost-saving benefits.” It is initially being offered on an inducement basis, and the first vessel berthed at RB last Saturday (September 19). “The idea,” said Lorenz, “is to induce a vessel roughly every fortnight – and, should the demand be sufficient, we can look at making it more regular.”