Being congestion free, flexible and having available capacity are attributes that are regularly commented on by industry media as terminals respond to the demands of global shipping lines.
Contship Italia Group’s Mediterranean Hub, Cagliari International Container Terminal (CICT), continues in 2015 to support customer ship networks as ticking the right boxes when it comes to planning and deployment of ships phasing in and out of services. Between March 5th and March 7th, the terminal performed two such operations on ships, totalling some 4,200 contract moves, including the direct simultaneous exchange between the ships of some 800 moves.
On Thursday March 5th 2015 Cagliari International Container Terminal (CICT) welcomed the phase in and maiden call of the m/v Pinehurst Kontor, a ship now deployed by German carrier Hapag Lloyd AG in the Med Gulf Express service – the MGX – a string connecting Western Mediterranean to Mexico and North America. The m/v Pinehurst Kontor is 294 metres long and has a nominal capacity of 5,060 TEUs.
The m/v Navegantes Express was already at berth at CICT, having arrived as an MGX call, but departing as an extra loader for empty repositioning to Asia via Alexandria.
Leandro Ferrari – CICT customer service manager – commented “... having both an international network, supported by a long established intra-Med feeder network, CICT has become a more appealing location in which to perform these operations. Deep-sea ships cross each other, whilst performing their regional schedules and the feeder network supports the supply of surplus equipment within a tightly controlled process. This is very much different than the traditional hub and spoke network, as global shipping lines search for an ideal location to optimise their networks, involving both ships and containers….”