MSC Makes History by Bringing One of the Largest Container Vessels in the World to Laem Chabang Port

On July 30th, 2020, another milestone has been achieved at Laem Chabang Port with the arrival of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC)’s container vessel; MSC Mina. She made her maiden call at Hutchison Ports Thailand’s Terminal D as the largest container vessel to ever berth in the Land of Smiles, with a length of 399.7 meters and 61.0 meters of width. To learn more, we spoke with Mr. Peter Blohm, Managing Director of Mediterranean Shipping (Thailand) Co. Ltd. and Mr. Stephen Ashworth, Managing Director of Thailand & South East Asia for Hutchison Ports about yet another significant moment in Thailand’s logistics industry. A Historic Moment “Laem Chabang is an important port for MSC in South-east Asia, and we are delighted to welcome the first-ever call by MSC Mina, one of our biggest, most energy-efficient, and technologically advanced ships to Thailand,” said Mr. Blohm. “We are proud to have MSC Mina calling at our Terminal D. It is a historic milestone as it is the first time a mega-vessel has called in Thailand. This clearly demonstrates our terminal’s efficiency as well as its capabilities in servicing such mega vessels, and we look forward to welcoming further vessels of similar size in the near future,” added Mr. Ashworth. Titans of the Ocean Surface “MSC Mina is an Ultra Large Container Ship (ULCS) and is part of MSC’s Gülsün class of ships. . These 11 ships are among the largest container vessels in the world, and have been designed with a wide range of environmental, efficiency, stability and safety matters in mind,” revealed Mr. Blohm. The largest container vessel to ever call at Thailand arrived at Laem Chabang Port with the capacity of 23,656 TEUs, which is equivalent to 384 million pairs of shoes or 47,312 cars, and 228,741 of gross tonnage. MSC Mina is also capable of carrying over 2,000 refrigerated containers, which helps to boost the trade of essential goods such as food & beverage, pharmaceutical products, perishables and other chilled or frozen items. For this maiden port call, MSC Mina was operating under MSC’s Lion-Jaguar service, which expanded its coverage to Thailand in April 2020. The Lion-Jaguar service calls at Europe, Asia, and the West Coast of the US, and offers direct shipping services from Thailand to the US via the Trans-Pacific route without transit. The port rotation of the Lion-Jaguar service includes Busan, Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian, Tanjung Pelepas, Sines, Antwerp, Le Havre, Felixstowe, Algeciras, Singapore, Laem Chabang, Nansha, Yantian, Shanghai, Long Beach, and Oakland. MSC Mina left Hutchison Ports Thailand’s Terminal D on July 31st, 2020, and sailed towards Nansha as her next destination.

Wan Hai Lines to Launch Taiwan to Vietnam and Thailand Services Coverage

Wan Hai Lines has announced a new service string connecting Taiwan to Vietnam and Thailand. This service is to be named TVT (Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand) and is operating jointly with Interasia Lines. TVT service will be operated with 2 vessels with an intake of 1,200 TEU and run on 14 days round trip with port callings at Taipei, Taichung, Cat Lai, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok, Laem Chabang, Taipei. Wan Hai Lines will deploy 1 vessel while its partner Interasia Lines will operate another one, with the maiden voyage commencing from Taipei on 24th July 2020. To optimize our service coverage simultaneously, current KVS service is going to add Kaohsiung call from July 23, 2020, rotation is Incheon, Kwangyang, Busan, Ulsan, Taipei, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Cat Lai Ho Chi Minh, Port Kelang (North Port), Port Kelang (West Port) Cat Lai Ho Chi Minh, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Taipei, Incheon TVT service will be the forth string service connected Taiwan – Ho Chi Minh and the third string service connected Taiwan – Thailand to provide clients more options. It will also strengthen Wan Hai Lines’ current services to better serve customers’ needs.

Introducing LM’s New Online Schedules

For readers of LM’s print edition, you are probably well versed in the sailing schedules that are updated in each issue. Well, we have big news for all shippers, manufacturers, ocean carriers, freight forwarders, and NVOCC’s; we are now proudly offering online digital sailing schedules for free at https://schedules.logistics-manager.com/ This is a first for sailing schedules in Thailand, as users can now access this valuable information in any way they choose; be it in our print edition of LM, or on desktop and mobile. Our sailing schedules are localized and specialized for the Thai market and are for anyone doing business in Thailand. For a more in-depth guide, join us as we walk you through the new online system. A New Age To begin, the online sailing schedules have been designed around the modern idea of a “one-page” design. Meaning, that everything you need is available simply in a single page. To reach these schedules a convenient link has been placed in the menu bar of the LM website. You can access our new online schedules via the LM homepage or directly with https://schedules.logistics-manager.com Upon arriving at the home page of the sailing schedules, you’ll be given a few different options for how you’d like to search for upcoming voyages. The options include searching by Carrier, Departure Port, Destination Country, Destination Port, and Departure Date. As an example, say you were interested in looking at all the available voyages to the port of Kobe in Japan, you should select Kobe from the Destination Port menu, you’ll be given all the available voyages currently in our system. You can then further refine the search results by choosing specific Departure Ports, Carriers or Departure Dates. You are not required to start with destination port though, you could for example start by destination country (or any of the other options). In this case, selecting Japan from the Desination Country dropdown menu would then allow you to see all the destination ports available within Japan as well as displaying all the voyages we currently have available in the system going to Japan. Each time you make a selection from the menus, the results are updated and your search is further refined. You can use as many or as few of the menus as you need to get your result. To make a completely new search, press the CLEAR ALL button to start fresh. By default, the results are shown sorted by departure date, but you can change the sort order with the drop down menu in the top right-hand corner if you wish. If one of the voyages interests you, clicking on the contact button brings up the contact form. You can complete your details and submit the form to inform the carrier/freight forwarder of your interest and they can then contact you back to assist you further. That’s it, you’re finished. If you want more in-depth details, check the FAQ on the next page or contact us at schedules@logistics-manager.com Destination Port Advertising As a special note, for freight forwarders we offer premium space for advertising your direct LCL and FCL services to specific ports. So, if a user of our online schedule searches for voyages to Aarhus this advertisement would appear. For more information on this, please contact orawan@logistics-manager.com or call +66 2 650 8690 ext. 501.