EVERGREEN TO LAUNCH ASIA/U.S. EAST COAST SERVICE IN JULY

EVERGREEN TO LAUNCH ASIA/U.S. EAST COAST SERVICE IN JULY    Evergreen Line will launch a weekly Asia/Panama/U.S. East Coast container service in July that will complement its existing eastbound and westbound round-the-world services.
   Evergreen’s “AUE” service will employ nine vessels and will call at the ports of Hong Kong, Kaohsiung, Coco Solo in Panama, New York and two additional ports on the U.S. East Coast. The carrier said that it has not yet decided whether the service will call at Baltimore or at Norfolk in the U.S. Northeast and at Charleston or Savannah in the South Atlantic. A final decision on these port calls will be made soon, Evergreen said.
   The Asia/U.S. East Coast service is expected to provide faster transit times between East Asia and the U.S. East Coast than Evergreen’s current round-the-world ships, which call at Japanese ports and at Los Angeles on the way to and from the U.S. East Coast.
   According to ComPairSchedules, the global sailing schedules database on the Internet, Evergreen’s eastbound round-the-world service has a transit time from Hong Kong to New York of 32 days, 6 days slower than the fastest all-water service in the trade.
   The new “AUE” service will add about 110,000 TEUs of one-way annual capacity to the booming transpacific trade. It will use three 2,728-TEU “G-type” vessels and six 1,810-TEU “L-type” ships.
   Evergreen said that the new service is in response to demands from shippers in North America and the Far East for additional all-water services.
   Evergreen is the latest carrier to announce the start of new all-water Asia/U.S. East Coast services, following similar moves by “K” Line, China Ocean Shipping Co., Yangming Marine Transport, CMA CGM, China Shipping Group and P&O Nedlloyd.
   Evergreen is also planning changes to its Asia/U.S. West Coast services.
   The Korea, Japan/U.S. West Coast “KJW” service of Evergreen and other services may be modified as a result of the changes within the group. The 1,810-TEU ships of the “KJW” service will switch to the new “AUE” East Coast operation.
   Evergreen is also adding capacity to its Hong Kong, Taiwan/U.S. West Coast “HTW” service by phasing in larger “U-type” vessels of 5,364-TEU to replace smaller ships.