Ashdod port will begin handling cargo shipment and will become affectively the only direct call port on the eastern Mediterranean. Cosco will arrive to Ashdod once a week, on Thursday morning. “Many eyes are watching Ashdod performance” says Sami Niego, Carmel Shipping CEO, Cosco representative in Israel
Last week a very significant decision was made at Cosco. The decision was to include the port of Ashdod, on a weekly basis, within the framework of the AMX line while replacing Port Said which makes Ashdod the only port which Cosco visits directly on the Mediterranean.
As a result, as of mid. March Cosco Ships will skip Port Said and will visit instead Ashdod port once a week on Thursday morning. This was announced last week by Sami Niego, CEO of Carmel Shipping, Cosco representative in Israel.
Cosco’s decision gets a deeper meaning inlight of the decision to actually give up usage of Port Said as a regional transhipment port and to use Ashdod port as a transhipment port instead.
“Many eyes are watching Ashdod’s performance”, said Niego. According to him, the move Cosco made has many ramifications. The first, he said, was the fact that Ashdod port replace Port Said as a direct call port in the eastern Mediterranean. Another consequence is that Ashdod port will become a transhipment port, at first for a limited number of containers, but if the port will live up to expectations, the number of containers will grow as well.
Niego promise more interesting news during this coming March. “We hope that with Ashdod’s performance we will manage to persuade Cosco, within a couple of months, to visit Ashdod on the way back going East and by doing so to enable import, with good transit-time, from ports of Italy, Spain and France”.
The AMX service of Cosco operates 7-8 new container ships with capacity around 3,800 TEU. This service offers short and attractive transit time with a direct service which connects the ports of China and the Far East with Israel and from there to the ports of Italy, France and Spain. Until recently the AMX line was operative by Cosco on partnership with K Line and Yang Ming. Now the service is exclusive by Cosco.
Cosco, which during these days is on the brink of a decision on how to upgrade the AMX line, decided that from now on the ports of call will include the ports of Qingdao, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shekou in the far East and from there, through the Suez Canal, to Ashdod and then to Piraeus, Naples, Genova, Barcelona and Valencia and back to the far east ports. As mentioned, port Said was removed from the round and Ashdod, Piraeus and Qingdao were added to it.
The upgraded service will offer attractive transit time. For example, the transit time from Shanghai to Ashdod will be from 18-19 days, and the transit time between Hong Kong/Shekou and Ashdod will be only 14-15 days.
Operative difficulties in Port Said
Cosco has reached its decision after “Empress Dragon”, which was supposed to enter Port Said on Saturday, was docking outside the port for more than 2.5 days without docking. Originally, the ship was suppose to visit Ashdod port right after Port Said, but the huge delay was about to cause the skipping of Ashdod port. At the same time, and inlight of the lack of satisfaction in Cosco from the handling in Port Said, Mr. Niego was directed to look for an alternative in Ashdod port. “In Ashdod it is more convenient. All in all, the decision was made after half an hour of coordination. We gave the order and the captain sailed to Ashdod”.
Couple of days ago the “Empress Dragon” reached Ashdod. Right on arrival it was tied to the dock and within a very shot time, with high productive value of 300 uploading/downloading per shift, it continued on its destiny at 14:00 the day after.
“At Cosco they are very happy with the results”, says Mr. Niego. Carmel CEO. “More than that, all the shipment (450 containers) which was about to be uploaded in Port Said as a transhipment for the ports of Greece, Turkey and the Black sea ports, were unloaded in Ashdod. 50% of shipment containers will be transhipped from Israel, and will be send to its original destiny, and the rest will be transshipped back to Egypt for further handling”.
Since Cosco has slot agreements with both K-Line and Yang Ming, Their local Israeli shipping agents, Mano and Conmart, will be able to offer this upgraded service to their customers as well.
