Panalpina adds Antwerp/Houston LCL service

Panalpina adds Antwerp/Houston LCL service    Logistics company and freight forwarder Panalpina said Thursday it is starting two new less-than-containerload services for ocean freight customers.
   The services are a weekly offering from Antwerp to Houston and one from Ningbo to Wroclaw, Poland.
   The company said the Antwerp-to-Houston service is meant to complement an existing ocean freight LCL network from Europe to the Gulf of Mexico, using weekly guaranteed sailings based on Panalpina's long-time partner NYK Line. Shipments from Benelux nations France and Switzerland will be consolidated in Panalpina's LCL ocean hub in Antwerp before heading to Houston, and connecting markets in Dallas, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen, New Orleans and Tulsa. Transit time from port to port is 18 days.
   'This service is particularly important for customers from the oil and gas segment,” said Ragnar Dalen, who oversees Panalpina’s product and procurement for ocean LCL in North America. “In addition, it provides a valuable in-network connection for cross-border shipments into Mexico.'
   The Ningbo-to-Wroclaw service will also use space on NYK Line ships and is Panalpina’s second guaranteed LCL service on the Far East/Europe westbound trade lane (a Shanghai/Wroclaw service is already in place). The service has 26-day transit time, the company said.
   “Additional services from Asia-Pacific to Wroclaw are currently being reviewed as Panalpina expects considerable growth in Poland especially within the high-tech industry,” the company said.
   'Contrary to the overall market development, the demand for additional in-network LCL ocean freight services continued to grow throughout 2009 as the customer focus on safe solutions from door-to-door provided and controlled by one party remained high', said Peter Herling, Panalpina's global head of product and procurement, ocean LCL. 'As changes in order frequency and size in many cases no longer justified a (full container load) shipment, it became even more important to the customers that their goods now shipped as LCL shipments were handled by the least number of parties, being it trucking companies, warehouse operators, handling agents, or shipping lines.”