TCS News: 27 April 2008

Maersk's CRX and Andean Services Move to Tilbury

We are thrilled to welcome to TCS two new Maersk trades; The West Coast of South America (Andean) and Caribbean (CRX) services. These services complement the already extensive coverage of this market at Tilbury.

The CRX started regular weekly calls on 27 April 2008 linking Tilbury with the Caribbean ports of San Juan (Puerto Rico), Caucedo (Dominican Rep), Manzanillo (Panama) and Puerto Moin (Costa Rica). The service employs five vessels with circa 2,500 TEU capacity including 600 reefer plugs. The predominant commodities on this trade are bananas, pineapples and melons. The Andean service started regular weekly calls at TCS on 10 May 2008 linking Tilbury with Manzanillo and Balboa in Panama and the West coast South American ports of Iquique, San Antonio and Lirquen in Chile. The service employs six vessels with capacities between 2,800 and 3,020 TEU. The predominant commodities on this trade are apples, grapes, onions, kiwi, avocado, stone fruit, soft citrus, blueberries and wine.

Dirk Hoffmann, Maersk Line Area Reefer Manager commented:

"We are very pleased that TCS had the capacity to move both the CRX and and Andean Services to Tilbury. Both services are driven by high reefer volumes and we find that TCS is a ‘natural home' for these services with TCS' experience and high focus on the reefer trades. The CRX service will now call at the UK port, which is geographically closer to the end customers, and should result in lower local distribution costs as well as reducing the carbon footprint of the fruit moving to its final destination. The benefit to our customers on the Andean service is that we are now calling at the same port as the SAECS service from South Africa, therefore there will be a significant consolidation of commodities such as apples, grapes, avocadoes and soft citrus. We have so far been impressed with the pro-activeness and flexibility of the management and staff at TCS in providing a good service to us and our customers. We certainly hope that in the long term all our customers will benefit by moving these important reefer services to TCS."