With effect from 7th July, 2004, London-headquartered Hatsu Marine Ltd has added an extra service to its rapidly growing network by taking over from Lloyd Triestino full responsibility for the Intra Europe Service (IES). Both Hatsu and Lloyd Triestino are members of the Evergreen Group. The IES service links the ports of Bilbao, Le Havre, Rotterdam, Gothenburg and Thamesport on a weekly basis and is operated in association with X-Press Container Line. It will be marked by Hatsu as a European regional service whilst also meeting the Evergreen Group's requirements for deepsea feeder connections between these five ports.
The IES service, which was inaugurated in October 2003, currently employs two vessels, Alexandra and Mira J., both of which have a container capacity of approximately 400 TEUS at 14 tons homogeneous weight. Their schedule involves a 14-day round trip cycle with the following port rotation:
Rotterdam - Bilbao - Le Havre - Rotterdam - Gothemburg - Thamesport - Rotterdam.
According to Hatsu's President, Jason Lin, Hatsu is looking for further opportunities in the North European Market place:" In addition to building up our global network, Hatsu is placing a high priority on developing its North European feeder links. We want to expand our network to cover more outports in advance of the introduction of larger vessels over the next few years. Taking over responsibility for the IES service is just the first step on this particular road. And of course, the IES service is not only a feeder service. We want to expand our shortsea intra-European business. This is very much EU policy nowadays as congestion on Europe's roads is getting much worse. At Hatsu, we want to play a part in helping industry tranfer freight off roads and onto shortsea vessels."
HATSU MARINE PRESS RELEASE