Original news was published on 28 May, 2014

Safmarine has expanded its Europe-West Africa service with the launch of Energy, a dedicated service to provide the oil and gas industry with a premium shipping service to West Africa.

“The service, which has a frequency of every 18 days, will make direct calls at Aberdeen (UK), Antwerp (Belgium) and Portugal before calling the Nigerian port of Onne and Luanda, Sonils, Soyo and Lobito in Angola,” Safmarine MPV managing director Jorg Knuttel said in a statement. “Transit times will also be significantly shorter than those currently available.”

Safmarine first introduced the new service at Breakbulk Europe 2014 held earlier this month in Antwerp, Belgium.

Further, Safmarine merged two existing services, Ace and Opex. The new service, dubbed Industry, provides fast, direct liner service for industrial projects, conventional cargo and containers between Europe and selected ports in West Africa.

“This service will offer the fastest transit times out of Europe into Port Gentil (Gabon) and Equatorial Guinea and will also call selected ports in Nigeria, the Congo and Cameroon,” Knuttel said.

Standard features on both the Safmarine Europe-West Africa services are a heavy-lift capability of up to 160 tons (using ship’s own gear), full IMDG/IMO capability (acceptance of all classes of IMO including IMO 1 and IMO 7) and the support of Safmarine MPV’s trade and operations team.

Safmarine MPV vessels can also call private jetties and perform offshore ship-to-ship transfers, Knuttel said.


*NEWS SOURCE