The Hindu Business Line : Transworld mulls 2 feeder services from Haldia

Kolkata April 25 Transworld Group proposes to launch shortly two shipping services, both feeder services, from Kolkata/Haldia — one international and the other coastal.

The international service will be from Kolkata/Haldia to Tanjung Pelapas, the Malaysian port now posing stiff competition to Singapore. Right now there is no direct service from here to the Malaysian port. The proposed one will be the first of its kind. It will be a weekly service to be operated with the help of two vessels, "OEL Excellence" and "Marc Clipper", each of the capacity of 500 TEUs.

The voyage to Tanjung Pelapas is to be covered in five days. Tanjung Pelapas has been developed by Maersk and the mainline vessels of other container majors such as CMA CGM, Evergreen and Malaysian International Shipping Company also make regular calls there.

Coastal service

The coastal service, to be offered by Shreyas Shipping, a Transworld Group company, will be between Kolkata/Haldia and Chennai. The weekly service will be operated with two vessels, "OEL Aishwariya" and "OEL Independence", of 500 TEUs capacity each. The voyage to Chennai will be completed in two days. It might be noted that the mainline vessels of CMA CGM, Maersk, Shipping Corporation of India, among others, operate mainline vessels out of Chennai.

The Chairman of the port of Tanjung Pelapas port, Director General of Shipping and Chairman of Kolkata Port Trust, among others, will be present at the flagging off of the services next week.