OOCL has unveiled more sailings to the African continent with calls at Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth set to be rolled out by mid-December.
The Hong Kong liner operator said the move reflects the “growing demand for quality services in this region”.
The three services will be the South Africa Service 1 (SAF1), Service 2 (SAF2) and Service 3 (SAF3) and will be slot charters.
“Our new products will provide customers with competitive and reliable services between Asia and South Africa with direct calls to strategic ports including Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth,” OOCL said.
SAF1 will call at Shanghai, Ningbo, Keelung, Singapore and Durban before returning to Singapore and then Shanghai.
SAF2 will leave from Kaohsiung, before calling at Xiamen, Hong Kong, Shekou, Singapore, Port Kelang, Durban, Cape Town before returning to Kaohsiung via Port Kelang and Singapore.
SAF3 will commence at Xingang, after which it will call at Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Singapore, Port Kelang, Durban and Port Elizabeth and then call at Port Kelang, Qinzhou, Hong Kong and Xingang on the return leg.
The first sailing for SAF2 will be from Kaohsiung on 30 November aboard the Ever Devote (built 1998), with the first sailings for the SAF 1 and 3 departing from Shanghai on 6 December aboard the YM Excellence (built 2015) and from Xingang on 11 December aboard the CSCL Sydney (built 2005) respectively.
Last month OOCL announced an expansion of its liner service foot print in Africa with the introduction of new services to the continent from Asia and Europe.
TradeWinds recently reported that c ontainership lines are drifting back to West Africa trades, despite a drop in freight rates and serious congestion in some of its major ports.
The moves come amid signs of a rebound in container volumes to West Africa which has affected freight rates on the benchmark route from Shanghai to Lagos.
These hit a five-year high of nearly $4,000 per 40-foot (feu) container in June and July, although they slipped back to around $3,230 per feu in September.
