Grimaldi starts new U.S./Africa service

Grimaldi starts new U.S./Africa service    Grimaldi Group, parent company of Atlantic Container Lines, will begin a direct, twice-monthly service carrying both roll-on/roll-off and container cargo between ports on the U.S. East Coast and West Africa in October.
   The service will be in addition to Grimaldi’s existing North America/West Africa offering, which transships cargo through Antwerp and utilizes ACL’s ships for the transatlantic leg and Grimaldi’s Europe/West Africa vessels. That service will continue.
   The new service will utilize ships with a capacity of up to 650 twenty-foot containers, 300 trucks/tractors/buses and 1,600 cars. The mix of containers and ro/ro cargo can be adjusted.
   The service will call at Jacksonville, Baltimore and New York. Ships will sail directly from New York to Dakar, Tema, Lome, Cotonou and Lagos. Connecting service on Grimaldi vessels will be offered to Banjul, Conakry, Freetown, Monrovia, Abidjan, Takoradi, Douala, Pointe Noire, Luanda and Boma.
   Grimaldi said that since the mid-1970s, it has been the largest carrier of vehicles between Europe and West Africa. It operates 21 multipurpose ro/ro-container vessels in the African trades.
   Grimaldi has a network of offices in West Africa, and operates landside logistics and car storage facilities in main port areas. In August it opened a new ro/ro terminal in Lagos.
   Backing up the new, more frequent direct service will be the four weekly ACL services to West Africa via Antwerp. These vessels will primarily serve African cargo via Halifax, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah and Houston. Customers will also have the option of moving overflow cargo on ACL vessels rather than waiting for the next direct Grimaldi voyage.