With the new line, TCP reaches the mark of 19 weekly services and remains the leader in the national offer.
Starting in September, the company that manages the Paranaguá Container Terminal (TCP) will receive a new maritime service in partnership with COSCO Shipping Lines/OOCL and Ocean Network Express (ONE). The service is branded respectively as: East Coast South America-Europe 2 (ESE2), Europe-East Coast South America Express (EEX) and Latin-East-Coast Europe Express (LUX). The route connects Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East to the east coast of South America. With this new service, TCP reaches 19th weekly maritime services and leader in the number of regular maritime services on the Brazilian coast.
The first vessel, Cosco’s 4,200 TEUs (20 feet long container) m/v Xin Nan Tong, will depart from Uruguay on September 16th and the first call in Paranaguá is expected on September 23rd. In Europe, Xin Chong Qing will start on 21st September 2023 from Rotterdam.
The new service rotation will be as follows:
Rotterdam – London Gateway – Hamburg – Antwerp – Lisbon – Algeciras – Santos – Paranagua – Montevideo – Buenos Aires – Itapoa – Paranagua – Santos – Rio De Janeiro – Algeciras – Rotterdam.
According to the TCP Shipping Lines Commercial Manager, Carolina Brown, “this new service will have two weekly calls at our terminal (south and northbound), expanding our leadership position in terms of the number of regular services and global coverage. The route covered by this service, besides several other goods, has a large share of reefer cargoes on the exports from Brazil to Europe. Paranaguá is the main export corridor for frozen poultry in the world and this new service meets this growing market demand in our terminal”.
Reefer containers (which have temperature control) are used to transport frozen meat and, to keep them in operation our yard must be equipped with reefer connections to provide the power supply that will ensure the proper operation and storage of these units. “TCP is investing to increase the reefer capacity and to improve the electricity infrastructure in our terminal to meet the global growing demand. We currently have 3,572 reefer plugs and, by the end of the year, we will reach the number 5,126 reefer plugs in our yard, which is the largest reefer capacity in all of South America.”
TCP has 3 berths (the place where vessels are berthed at the quayside) and can reach up to 7 gangs (teams working on board the vessel) simultaneously, which also supports the development of new services.
“We continue to invest in our structure and in the qualification of our teams to serve our customers and partners with excellence, several productivity and volume records have been broken recently, showing that all these initiatives are bringing positive results for the entire logistics chain in our state”, explains Brown.
The manager also comments on the recent draft expansions in the Port of Paranaguá: “The operational draft increase brings operational gains for the shipping lines, they can optimize the vessel capacity utilization as well as enables the operation of larger vessels in our port, which may be an advantage to bring new maritime services”.
This is the third announcement of a new line at the terminal. In February 2023, the company announced the start of the Braservice service, operated by the Panamanian carrier CTM, and represented in South America by Poseidon Container Shipping. In August Hapag-Lloyd announced the restructuring of the GS1 service that connects the US Gulf with the East Coast of South America including weekly calls in Paranaguá.
ABOUT COSCO SHIPPING LINES
COSCO SHIPPING Lines began operations on March 1, 2016 in the Hongkou district of Shanghai. The company is mainly engaged in domestic and international container transportation services and related businesses and is one of the main business segments of COSCO Shipping Group. The company operates 397 international and domestic shipping routes, including 260 international routes (including international feeder services), 53 domestic routes and 84 feeder routes along the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River.
ABOUT OCEAN NETWORK EXPRESS (ONE)
Ocean Network Express (ONE) was established on July 7, 2017 following the integration of Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (“K” LINE), Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK). With global headquarters in Singapore, ONE is supported by regional headquarters in Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the United States and Brazil. Operating over 200 vessels, it offers more than 170 services to 120 countries, and is the seventh largest container carrier in the world with a fleet of approximately 1.52 million TEUs.
ABOUT THE PARANAGUÁ CONTAINER TERMINAL (TCP)
TCP is the company that manages the Paranaguá Container Terminal and TCP Log, an institution that provides complete logistics solutions for importers and exporters. After several works, the terminal’s handling capacity was expanded from 1.5 million TEUs/year to 2.5 million TEUs/year. Since March 2018, TCP has been part of the portfolio of China Merchants Port Holding Company (CMPort), considered the largest and most competitive developer, investor and operator of public ports in China.
