Port offers sops to Maersk

Chennai: The Chennai Port Trust has offered a 15 per cent concession in marine-related charges (such as pilotage and tug services) to Maersk Line, which commenced its direct container service between Chennai and the US East Coast ports on Friday.

The port trust would consider extending the concession to other lines that bring their mother vessels, which offer direct link between major ports across the world, to Chennai, Mr K. Suresh, Chairman of Chennai Port, told newspersons.

'We are working out the package on concession along with the Chennai Container Terminal (P) Ltd, which runs a private container terminal inside the port,' he said.

Mr Suresh said from May first week CMA-CGM, a major container line, plans to commence its mother vessel operations from Chennai to Mediterranean and European ports.

Maersk started its weekly direct container shipping service from Chennai to Savannah (US east coast).

This would reduce transit time between the two destinations by four days and help consignees save on container handling charge at the transhipment port of Colombo, according to a company official.

The service from Chennai began with the container vessel Maersk Dijbouti making a maiden visit on Friday.

For a long time, Maersk clients such as Wal-Mart, IKEA, Gap, American Power Company, Ford and Saint-Gobain have sought a US direct service, Mr Suresh said.

The new service, called MECL 2, would have the port rotation of Chennai, Colombo (Sri Lanka), Salalah (Oman), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Gioria Tauro (Italy), Algeciras (Spain), Newark (US), Norfolk (US) and Savannah (US), and vice versa.

Eight ships of capacities ranging between 4,000 and 5,000 TEUs would operate in the service, he said.