Maersk, the world’s number one container line, has included Port Pipavav (Gujarat) in its India-Middle East-US East Coast (MECL 1) service.
The new service, launched a few days ago, is to connect customers in Gujarat and the North Indian hinterland directly to the US market, according to shipping industry sources.
From Pipavav, the service is expected to load cotton, garments, sea food, meat, farm produce and other cargoes.
The port rotation is: Mumbai-JNPT-Salalah-Newark-Charleston-Norfolk-Jebel Ali-Port Qasim-Pipavav-Mumbai-JNPT. With this, the transit time to the US will be 23 days, it is estimated.
Maersk is also enhancing its capacity of the MECL 1 service by introducing higher capacity vessels. The present seven 4,800-TEU vessels are to be replaced by eight 6,478-TEU capacity vessels, it is learnt.
Since MECL 1 is a US flag service, the 6,478-TEU vessels have to be reflagged and renamed to enable them to carry government cargo. Right now these vessels are deployed on Maersk’s AC 3 service covering Asia and Central America, it is further learnt.