West Africa service adds fast transit to Lagos

MITSUI OSK Lines’ new product, the MRX service between India, the Gulf, South Africa and West Africa, is already hitting the mark for shippers, says Iain McIntosh, marketing manager for MOL. Deploying a total of five vessels of around 1 000 teus in partnership with LNL and PIL, MRX was introduced about a month ago. “The big plus on this service,” says McIntosh, “is that it brings on an additional fast transit time to Lagos, a big market. In addition we offer a very fast product for refrigerated cargo from Cape Town and Durban to Jebel Ali, in the Gulf, which has certainly caught the attention of the reefer trade.” He says it makes sense to operate the service on a partnership basis as one carrier would not necessarily be able to fill its ships. The MRX was introduced at about the time MOL withdrew from the East Africa market and even though McIntosh will not enter into specifics for leaving this particular trade, he acknowledges it as a huge market from South Africa. McIntosh is hugely encouraged by the big emerging trade between the Indian sub- Continent and Africa as a whole and believes much of the future success will be due to the economic alliance cemented earlier this year between India, South Africa and Brazil. On MOL’s other Africa product, the WA1, he says the weekly service calling at Durban, Cape Town, Lome, Tema, Lagos, Abidjan and Maputo eastbound, is “a stable product and a stable trade”, running smoothly and with volumes showing quite big growth. The entry of DP World as port operator of Maputo, in succession to P&O Ports, is another welcome sign for the development of this port and trade to global markets. “This is very positive because we have seen a number of South African customers move through the gateway, driven purely by some cost-saving on the landside and also the fact that ships are berthed on arrival.”