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TS Lines takes delivery of TS Kaohsiung and orders two 1,096-EUers

DUE to the increasing charter rates, Taiwan's TS Lines plans to gradually increase the ratio of owned vessels. The company ordered four 1,800-TEU containerships from CSBC Corporation, Taiwan (CSBC) for US$100 million in 2015.

The third vessel of the series, TS Kaohsiung, was christened at CSBC's shipyard in Keelung on November 21.

Chairman of TS Lines, Mr TS Chen, also announced the plan to order two 1,096-TEUers from Japanese shipyards next month.

TS Kaohsiung is the sister ship of TS Bangkok and TS Tokyo, which were delivered to TS Lines in July and September respectively this year.

Meanwhile, the company acquired a 2,500-TEU second-hand boxship in September. "We will continue to look for second-hand boxships of good condition and utilise higher proportion of 1,000-1,800 TEU boxship in our fleet. We will also place more orders in the future," the company said.

TS Kaohsiung has a length of 172 metres and a width of 27.5 metres. The ship will join TS Bangkok and TS Tokyo on the JHT service with port rotation of: Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, Yokohama, Tokyo, Keelung, Taichung, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Shekou, Laem Chabang, Bangkok, Laem Chabang, Hong Kong, Shekou, Osaka in a 28-day round trip.

In addition, TS Lines is to launch two South China-Philippine services to further expand in the Southeast Asian market. In order to avoid port congestion in Manila South port/North port at the same time, the service will be divided into SPX and NPX to provide customers with accurate shipping schedules.

A 1,000-TEU boxship will be deployed by TS Lines and jointly operate with APL. The SPX service will commence on December 5 on a weekly basis with port rotation of: Hong Kong, Nansha, Chiwan, Manila South port and back to Hong Kong; the NPX service will start on December 4 on a weekly basis with port rotation of: Hong Kong, Nansha, Chiwan, Manila North port and back to Hong Kong.

TS Lines launched a joint service with GSL, KMTC, RCL and SML dubbed CMX connecting China to the Middle East. The new weekly service commenced on November 17 with port rotation of: Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Chiwan, Port Klang, Colombo, Karachi, Jebel Ali, Colombo, Port Klang, Singapore and back to Tianjin. The new service provides direct access from Central China, South China and North China to Pakistan and the Middle East. It shortens transit time, reduces costs and provides shippers with another economical and efficient option.