Mediterranean Shipping Company is seeing out the year with the introduction of a new service from Monday, November 25, that will connect several leading ports on the western European seaboard with direct-call destinations on Africa’s northwest coast.
In addition to the NWC-Angola, Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) service, shippers can expect expanded access to Matadi via a feeder service, said Jaouad Chaoui, Belgium-based commercial trade manager for MSC.
The service will connect the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp, Le Havre, Casablanca, Las Palmas, Dakar, Conakry, Lomé, Pointe Noire and Luanda, and aims to provide faster ocean transport of dry bulk and project cargo as well as cold chain boxes.
Give or take, the transit times from the Benelux and French ports to the end-rotation Port of Luanda should be about 25 days.
To Pointe Noire, from where a feeder service will connect with the DCR’s Port of Matadi, it will take roughly 23 days from the Port of Rotterdam.
MSC has said: “Direct service will be complemented by our intermodal solutions from Pointe Noire to key capitals of Kinshasa and Brazzaville. Additionally, our intermodal presence in Angola allows for the delivery of cargoes from Luanda to inland destinations.”
The new service confirms the global container capacity leader’s intention to enhance its Europe-southern Africa sailings.
In March this year, MSC also introduced the Ingonyama feeder service whereby the ports of East London and Ngqura at the Coega IDZ was linked as an alternative for road freight challenges in the Eastern Cape region.
MSC’s NWC service will run alongside its existing West Africa (WAF) rotation, connecting the ports of Antwerp, London Gateway, Le Havre, Tema, Lomé, Lagos, Abidjan and Dakar.
