US carmaker Chrysler is boosting export activity from North America with two new shipping contracts serving Europe, Asia, Australia and the Pacific Rim.
The company has signed a contract with the North America Pacific Asia (NAPA) service jointly operated by Norway’s Partner Shipping and Australia’s Praxis Logistics. This month it begins using it to export vehicles from the Port of Grays Harbor on the US northwest Pacific coast and from the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas. The vehicles will be shipped to Japan, China, Korea, Singapore and the Philippines, as well as ports in Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Tahiti.
As a result, NAPA has added a third vessel to its existing vessel fleet, which will increase its schedule frequency to every 20 days and boost capacity by more than 30% according to the venture. As well as the MV Silverstone Express and MV Positive Passion, the 200m MV Ocean Challenger (pictured) will provide 6,400 RT car capacity.
Partner Shipping and Praxis Logistics aim to introduce a fourth vessel on the NAPA service within 2010, providing existing and new customers with a twice monthly service between Mexico, USA, Japan, Korea, China, Singapore Australia and New Zealand.
Talking about the Chrysler contract Kevin Moore, Director of Praxis Logistics said: “The awarding of the Chrysler contract to NAPA is a further endorsement of the strategic and economic value of the NAPA service to the automotive, ro-ro and breakbulk markets in the Pacific Rim region.”
The NAPA service, which began in June last year (read more here), was established to answer “strong market demand” in the region and has been shipping automotive and high and heavy imports to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand since then.
As part of the new service, Chrysler is using Pasha Automotive’s facilities at Grays Harbor, while Union Pacific Railroad will make direct calls to the terminal. Railcars and loading equipment will be available on terminal for inland backhaul.
“Our initial logistics support for the Chrysler project calls for us to provide tracking and logistics reporting to Chrysler at a VIN level detail from arrival at Grays Harbor through to arrival at the ports of call in China, South Korea, Philippines, Japan and Singapore,” Pasha spokesperson Joelle Vossbrink told Automotive Logistics News.
Meanwhile, from the US East Coast, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) will add Chrysler traffic to two of its regular trade routes between North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand as part of a new contract starting in the first quarter of 2010.
The company makes weekly sailings to Europe as well as three sailings a month to Australia and New Zealand via Europe, loading at the Port of Baltimore in the US and the Port of Bremerhaven in Germany.
Ports of destination in Europe as well as Bremerhaven include Zeebrugge, Hanko, Goteburg and Drammen. In Australia and New Zealand unloading will occur at Brisbane, Fremantle, Melbourne, Port Kembla, Adelaide, Papeete, Noumea and Auckland. The company will also make Chrysler deliveries to East London in South Africa.
Chrysler is shipping a number of vehicles from its plants in the US and Canada including the 300C, Charger, Compass and Nitro models but WWL would not disclose any details of volumes on the routes.
