Grand Alliance begins Asia-Black Sea service in June

GRAND Alliance shipping lines, Hapag-Lloyd, NYK, OOCL and MISC, plan to launch a new weekly container shipping service called, the Asia-Black Sea Express (ABX), that will call at ports in China, the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea from late June. Seven 3,000 TEU vessels will be deployed in the new service to cover the following ports: Shanghai, Ningbo, Shekou, Singapore, Damietta, Istanbul, Constanza, Odessa, Izmir, Damietta, Singapore and back to Shanghai. The new addition to the Grand Alliance product will further enhance the network. The service follows a decision by Hapag-Lloyd to leave its Asia-Black Sea joint service with CSAV Norasia, outside of the GA frame (ABS). The ABX will boost to 10 the number of weekly loops that the Grand Alliance offers on the Asia-Europe-Med trade. Seven of them are operated by Grand Alliance itself, while the remaining three involve a slot charter agreement with the New World Alliance.

Colombo Port expansion works to receive major funding boost from ADB

THE Asian Development Bank (ADB) is lending US$300 million to help finance the Colombo Port Expansion Project. The project will be funded through a public-private collaboration; with the public sector undertaking infrastructure improvement works in the harbour, including dredging and breakwater construction to pave the way for three new container terminals. The expansion works are designed to raise the port's container handling capacity from 3.3 million TEU in 2006 to 5.7 million by 2010 and eventually to 10.5 million, according to the ADX, in a bid to turn Sri Lanka into a transshipment hub. "Colombo Port is a natural transshipment hub for South Asia," said Prodyut Dutt, a senior transport specialist with ADB's South Asia Department. "In recent years, Colombo Port has lost market share in transshipment because it does not have the operating capacity or depth required to berth the latest generation containerships