Rickmers upgrades India/Europe service

Rickmers upgrades India/Europe service    Rickmers-Linie, a German-based liner specialist for project and heavy-lift cargo, said it is upgrading its Indian service with the addition of new vessels.
   It will also provide a direct service eastbound and westbound between Europe and India, although calls in Pakistan and the Middle East will be possible on an inducement basis. The base ports served are Hamburg, Antwerp, Genoa, Mumbai and Chennai.
   Four new vessels are entering this service: the Linde and Martin have been long-term chartered by the line, while the Rickmers Yokohama and Rickmers Tianjin are due for delivery from the Xinshun Shipyard Group in China in May and July, respectively. Linde was the first to be phased in, starting her first eastbound voyage in mid March.
   Built in 2005, Linde and Martin are 12,800-deadweight-ton vessels each equipped with two 120-ton capacity cranes that can be twinned to lift 240 tons. Rickmers Yokohama and Rickmers Tianjin are 17,000 dwt vessels, each equipped with two 150-ton cranes and an 80-ton crane. This enables them to lift up to 300 tons by twinning the two larger cranes.
   Being smaller than the nine 30,000 dwt vessels operated by Rickmers on its round the world Pearl String service, the ships employed on the revamped Indian service offer greater flexibility to serve ports such as Mumbai where locks restrict the size of vessels — as well as various smaller ports on an inducement basis.
   Rickmers said it will now serve Middle East and Persian Gulf primarily with its Pearl String service.
   'We are seeing increasing demand for breakbulk space on this route. Eastbound, we expect to be loading steel products as a base load, topping off with manufactured goods ranging from mobile cranes and mining products through to specialist railway and power generation equipment. said Gerhard Janssen, director marketing and sales. “Westbound, there are more and more non-containerizable shipments as India's engineering and manufacturing capabilities develop.'
   He also said in the past year more modern breakbulk ships are available for charter at reasonable rates than one or two years ago when “all that was really available was old tonnage in need of retirement.”