Monday’s arrival of the largest container vessel to visit Port Chalmers in the past 47 years heralds a significant change for Southern export services.
Rio de Janiero will be the first of seven ships capable of carrying more than 5900 TEU’s (20ft equivalent units), calling at Port Chalmers every Sunday.
The change from L-class to the larger Rio-class ships is effectively an upgrade of shipping giant Maersk’s existing Southern Star network, meaning potentially up to an extra 500 containers per week through Port Chalmers during the peak export season.
Instead of weekly L-class ships which carry 4000 to 4500 TEUs, Maersk Rio-class ships can carry more than 5900 TEUs. They will travel to Southeast Asia, where containers can also be offloaded for delivery to the Middle East and on to Europe.
Maersk’s other southern New Zealand network, the Trident Service, will now come from Timaru’s Prime Port and tranship full containers at Port Chalmers, bound for Southeast Asia and beyond, before Trident takes other Southern exports on to North America.
Read more on Otago Daily Times.
