New round-the-world service adds Baltimore

New round-the-world service adds Baltimore    Mediterranean Shipping Co. will include a call at the Port of Baltimore in its new around-the-world Golden Gate Service.
   The Maryland Port Administration said the service will call Baltimore's Seagirt Marine Terminal, with the MSC Emma the first vessel scheduled as part of the weekly service.
   The Golden Gate Services operates with nine Mediterranean Shipping vessels, each with about 5,400-TEU capacity, in a port rotation of New York, Baltimore, Savannah, Freeport, Port Everglades, Panama transit, Balboa, Manzanillo, Shanghai, Ningbo, Hong Kong, Yantian, Singapore, Suez transit and New York. The Baltimore call was not among the ports originally listed in the new service’s itinerary when it was announced last month.
   The Maryland Port Administration said the new business would boost MSC's annual ship calls at Baltimore to about 300. In April, the port announced a new six-year contract extension with MSC.
   Capt. E. Lorenzo DiCasagrande, vice president of Mediterrean Shipping in Baltimore, said the new service offers customers faster service to the Far East.
   Mediterranean Shipping began a weekly service to Baltimore in 1988, and during the past 30 years, its volumes have increased 30-fold to more than 136,000 containers in 2008.
   The carrier is Baltimore's top container customer and was also the first container shipping company to work out of the Seagirt Marine Terminal after it opened in 1990. Evergreen Marine Corp. provides the port's only other direct link to Asia.