The Port of Charleston will get another weekly call by Mediterranean Shipping Co. on June 9 when the MSC Washington becomes the first vessel on the company’s East Coast South America string 1 service.
From Charleston, the service makes direct calls at the following ports: Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rio Grande, Sao Francisco do Sul, Santos and Rio de Janeiro.
The Geneva-based carrier said inbound vessels from the East Coast of South America will call at its transshipment hub in Freeport, the Bahamas, before proceeding direct to Charleston and then to New York, Baltimore, Norfolk and Savannah.
It said the call at Freeport will allow MSC to continue to serve other east coast South America ports with loads for the Charleston community.
The new service will add 52 ship calls to the more than 200 calls MSC already makes in Charleston.
Earlier in May the South Carolina State Ports Authority signed a new five-year agreement with the Geneva-based carrier, extending its contract through 2017.
The new service brings to six the number of MSC’s weekly calls at Charleston, which is two more than the number of calls that Maersk Line now makes at Charleston.
Maersk Line, which was for years the port’s largest customer, has dropped its weekly calls here from seven to four in recent months.
The Danish carrier announced late last year it would leave Charleston when its contract with the SCSPA expires at the end of 2010, and the port authority has been negotiating with the Danish carrier ever since to keep some of its business.
“We continue to be hopeful that we’ll reach an agreement that will allow Maersk to remain in Charleston,” said SCSPA spokesman Byron Miller.
The Journal of Commerce Online
Login
.jpg)
