COSCO service adding Tampa call in January

Ocean Alliance carrier will add Port Tampa Bay to the rotation of its transpacific Gulf of Mexico Express service.     COSCO Shipping will add Port Tampa Bay to the rotation of its Gulf of Mexico Express (GME) transpacific service, with the first vessel, COSCO Piraeus, scheduled to arrive in Tampa on Jan. 28.
    The port said the new GME service port rotation will be Shanghai-Ningbo-Xiamen-Yantian-Houston-Mobile-Tampa. Import transit time to Port Tampa Bay from China will be 31 days, and export transit time from Port Tampa Bay to China will be 27 days. Connections on the new service will be provided to/from markets beyond China throughout Asia.
   COSCO is a member of the Ocean Alliance that also counts CMA CGM, Evergreen and OOCL as members. BlueWater Reporting says the service employs nine ships with average capacity of 4,280 TEUs, all operated by COSCO. The service transits the Panama Canal.
   “This is a historic development for Port Tampa Bay,” said Paul Anderson, president and chief executive officer of Port Tampa Bay. “This new direct Asian service will provide importers and exporters very competitive transit times on a weekly fixed day service.”
   COSCO will call at the container terminal operated by Ports America, which recently added two new post-Panamax cranes to complement its existing three gantry cranes and has a phased build-out plan to quadruple capacity over the next few years as business continues to grow.
   The port also is investing in new facilities to continue to diversify its service offerings and cargo mix, which includes a new state-of-the-art on-dock cold storage warehouse recently opened by Port Logistics Refrigerated Services.