EUROPE/SOUTH AFRICA CARRIERS TO DEPLOY 4,300-TEU SHIPS

EUROPE/SOUTH AFRICA CARRIERS TO DEPLOY 4,300-TEU SHIPS    Shipping lines of the Southern Africa Europe Container Service, a consortium in the Europe/southern Africa trade, will introduce six larger containerships of 4,300-TEU nominal capacities that use the integral reefer container system.
   Starting from January, six new 4,300-TEU containerships designed to carry 1,800 integral reefer TEUs — reefer containers with their own refrigeration generators — will be deployed. The new ships, which are under construction, are being purpose built for the trade and equipped with 900 integral reefer plugs. They will replace 3,100-TEU vessels, each with a reefer capacity of about 1,100 TEUs that use the older blown-air reefer technology for conair containers.
   “This substantial increase in capacity underwrites the long-term growth of the trade,” the consortium carriers said in a statement.
   Consortium members Deutsche Afrika-Linien, Safmarine, Maersk Sealand and P&O Nedlloyd will be replacing seven vessels in their joint “core service” with the six larger, faster vessels in a revised weekly service.
The core service currently calls at Le Havre, Rotterdam, Tilbury, Bremerhaven, Tenerife, Las Palmas, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban, Cape Town and then northbound back to northern Europe via Las Palmas.