FESCO MERGES TWO PACIFIC SERVICES

    Far Eastern Shipping Co. will merge its two transpacific services in January and reduce the tonnage it deploys in the trade.
    FESCO, based in Vladivostok, Russia, said that it will amend its Pacific Line "FPL" service and phase out its Russian Pacific Line "FRPL" service.
    On Jan. 10, the vessel FESCO Enterprise will commence the revised FPL service when it sails from Long Beach. Vladivostok will be called directly on every other voyage. The service is expected to become fixed-day weekly during the first quarter of next year.
    The FPL service, which started in May, has been recently upgraded to a frequency of 10 days and added a direct call to Shanghai. The revised transit time from Seattle to Vladivostok will be 10 days.
    The revised rotation will be: Long Beach; Seattle; Vladivostok; Shanghai; Yantian; Hong Kong; and Long Beach again.
    The Russian Far East ports of Korsakov, Petropavlovsk and Magadan that have been served direct by the FRPL service, will be served by a new, scheduled feeder service via Vladivostok.