Cronos adds 500 new Daikin reefers

   Japan’s Daikin Reefer said the container leasing company Cronos Group has become the first customer for its new “Zestia” refrigeration units for containers.
   San Francisco-based Cronos took delivery of 500 units in November, which were installed on new 40-foot high cube containers. The boxes were made in Suzhou, China and will be used by MOL.
   Matt Dowling, vice president operations for Cronos, said the units have DC-inverter technology and other advanced features that result in ultra-low energy consumption.
   Cronos has about 800,000 TEUs in its fleet and about 35,000 TEUs of reefer containers. Dowling said the company has “one the most diversified fleet in the industry… This is because we have slightly less than half of our fleet in dry vans with the other half spread between reefers, tanks and dry freight specials, such as half heights, bulkers, rolltrailers, flatracks, opentops, etc.”
   He noted “these other container types can cost up to 8- to 10- to sometimes 12-times more than a 20-foot dry. We bought a little over $500 million of equipment in 2011, but only 40 percent of this was dries.”