Swire Shipping will launch a North West Australia direct service (NWD) from June, offering customers a direct connection between Singapore, Northwest ports in Australia.
The NWD service consists of two loops: the first loop will serve Singapore, Darwin, Port Hedland and operate with a transit time of 12 days from Singapore to Port Hedland; the second loop will operate from Singapore to Dampier, with a transit time of nine days.
On the first loop, Swire Shipping will deploy a multi-purpose vessel, Souni, which is chartered from Cypriot owner Intership Navigation. Souni has 629TEU capacity and will call at Singapore, Darwin, Port Hedland and back to Singapore. The second loop will see Swire Shipping purchase slots on Australian liner operator Sea Swift’s Singapore-Dampier service, which is served with the multi-purpose vessel, Karratha Bay, which has 387TEU of container capacity.
Swire Shipping said that the direct connections mean that shippers who previously relied on inland transport through Fremantle now have an additional option to transport cargo to and from North West Australia.
Swire Shipping’s General Manager for the Pacific, Randy Selvaratnam, said, “Over the past few years, we have made significant investments to improve our product offerings and provide more direct connections so that we can save our customers’ time.”
The NWD service also aims to reduce the overall carbon footprint from cargo delivery on current modes of transport. To transport cargo from Singapore to Port Hedland, customers previously needed to ship their cargo from Singapore to Fremantle before using inland transportation to Port Hedland.
Direct shipping between Singapore and Port Hedland will reduce carbon emissions by up to 35,000 tonnes annually, roughly the amount produced by 7,600 passenger vehicles.
Martina Li
Asia Correspondent
