The Hindu Business Line : CMA-CGM plans to bring in mainline vessel to Chennai

CMA CGM, the French container operator, is studying the viability of adding Chennai to the ports of call for its mainline container vessel (it provide direct connections between major ports).

The company brought CMA CGM Force, a West bound (European countries) mainline vessel to Chennai container terminal on Friday to test the waters for a regular main line operations in future, according to Mr Kamal Wijayasinghe, Owner's Representative, CMA-CGM, one of the leading container lines in the world.

"I cannot specify any time frame to bring a mainline vessel. We are extremely happy with operations at the Chennai Container Terminal, which handled 75-80 containers moves an hour. This is comparable to international standards," he told Business Line on board the vessel.

To make it viable for a mainline vessel visit Chennai, there should be around 300 import boxes and around 400 exports for every call, and the import containers can be reused for exports. Mainline vessels need to take a 42-hour detour from the main shipping lane to come to Chennai. This means additional chartering cost for the vessel, bunkering chargers and port-related charges, he said.

CMA-CGM is yet to fix the 2005 schedule for its container vessels, and the company is evaluating upgrading services globally next year, he said.

For a shipper in Chennai, sending and receiving boxes through mainline vessels would save transhipment cost at ports such as Colombo, Port Klang, Singapore and Hong Kong, said an industry source.

In the west coast of India, CMA-CGM operates three mainline vessels every week to Mumbai port; two ships a week call at Mundra and a weekly call at Tuticorin. On the East Coast, the company operates a feeder vessel between Kolkata and Port Klang. The company handles over a lakh TEUs a year in India, he said.

With revenues of 4 billion euros (estimated 2004), the company has around 50 mainline vessels and has a fleet strength of 172 vessels. Its ships call over 200 ports across the world, and the company's vessels are likely to carry 3.7 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) by the end of the year, says information on the company's Web site.