NEW ORLEANS – An alliance of global shipping lines has launched a new Asia-to-U.S.container service that brings a third weekly direct-to-Asia service to the Port of New Orleans. On June 22, the ONE Modern arrived at Port NOLA during its inaugural trip.
Port President and CEO Brandy D. Christian said the new service expands New Orleans’ direct connectivity with Asian markets for importers and exporters, adds a new direct port of call to Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan and offers additional options for customers.
“We are pleased to welcome THE Alliance and Evergreen’s new service to the Port of New Orleans,” said Christian in a release. “This new direct-Asia service highlights the industry’s continued investment in the New Orleans market and the importance of the Louisiana gateway’s connectivity to Asia. We are excited that our partners at Hapag Lloyd, ONE, HMM, Yang Ming and Evergreen are committing to this service and increasing access between the U.S. Gulf and the global market.”
Port NOLA said the service’s direct ports of call – Kaohsiung, Hong Kong, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Pusan, Panama, Houston, Mobile and New Orleans – will offer the best transit times for exporters out of New Orleans. The new service will be handled by terminal operator Ports America at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal.
“At a time when the West Coast is operationally under great pressure and shippers are increasingly looking at the carbon intensity of their logistics routing, it is exciting that ONE and the Port of New Orleans has a new weekly direct service connection with Asia,” said Jeremy Nixon, chief executive officer of Ocean Network Express.
The additional capacity of this service could support Port NOLA’s growing export business for commodities such as resin, poultry, forestry and agricultural products. This service will also further support Port NOLA’s import growth from overseas markets and the push for new distribution center announcements in Louisiana. These recent announcements have included Medline and Amazon, which together collectively total nearly 2 million square feet of distribution center space alone.
Port NOLA is currently in the process of a $100 million expansion project at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal that will add four new 100-foot-gauge container gantry cranes. This expansion will increase capacity to 1 million TEUs and allows the Port to work larger ships more efficiently. Port NOLA also is in the due diligence process for a $1.5 billion multimodal container terminal with a 2 million TEU capacity to serve the largest container vessels calling in the Gulf of Mexico.
