FOLLOWING LAST week's meeting in Malaysia, Safari service principals have finalised details of the revised service following the withdrawal of P&O Nedlloyd from this SA - Far East ship-sharing agreement in April.
The lines have confirmed that it will remain a 9-ship service with the two P&O Nedlloyd vessels being replaced with one Maersk Sealand and one MISC ship. The fleet will comprise Safmarine (3), Maersk (2), Mitsui OSK Line (2), K-Line (1) and MISC (1).
Changes in port rotation will see a reduction in the number of ports served in Japan (from five to three) and the addition of Thailand (Laem Chabang) to the service.
The Thailand call has been motivated by the volume of motor vehicle components being loaded in that country. Currently this is served via Singapore.
We will continue to run weekly and pick up P&ON's share of the capacity, Safmarine executive - South African trades Ivan Heesom-Green told FTW in Cape Town last week.
And he is confident that market growth will more than warrant the additional capacity.
We expect to achieve 100% utilisation in less than a year, he said.
In the past two years we have supplemented our service with peak season loaders, and we believe we will still need to do that.
Eastbound is not as good as westbound, but reefer is picking up.
Heesom-Green believes that Asia - South East Asia, China and Japan - is recovering. If the South African market grows at 3-4% this year, the capacity will disappear.
Safmarine also intends using the additional capacity for non-SA cargoes linking into the new SAMBA (South America and Middle East) and SAFWAF (West Africa) services.
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