Zim moves to Portland

Zim moves to Portland    Israel’s Zim Integrated Shipping Services has started previously announced calls at Portland on its weekly Asia Mediterranean Pacific service.
   The 3,403-TEU vessel “Zim USA” made the first call at the Oregon port Sunday. Before that, the AMP service had called Seattle. Other changes to the service include calls at the East Mediterranean ports of Kumport in Istanbul, Turkey, and Constanza in Romania instead of the Adriatic ports Trieste and Koper.
   The AMP service uses 13 ships with an average capacity of 3,344 TEUs calling: Piraeus, Kumport, Constanza, Haifa, Colombo, Singapore, Shekou, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Busan, Vancouver, Portland, Busan, Shanghai, Xiamen, Hong Kong, Shekou, Singapore, Haifa and back to Piraeus.
   “From the berth to the rail yard to the mainlines, we have existing capacity to move 500,000 TEUs annually, and we’ve been looking for carriers willing to take advantage of it. Zim has indicated they’ll offer intermodal service through Portland, and we’re very excited to prove Portland can be an extremely reliable, fast and efficient gateway port,” said Greg Borossay, Portland’s port liner development manager.
   Zim joins CP Ships, Matson, Indotrans Pacific and the CKYH alliance members, COSCO, “K” Line, Yang Ming and Hanjin as carriers who offer regular services to and from Portland.
   CSAV Norasia and China Shipping take slots from Zim on the Asia/U.S. West Coast section of the AMP service.