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United Feeder Services (UFS) will launch a container service between the Benelux, Spain and Portugal on July 4. The company is a well-known feeder firm in southern Europe and wants to expand its sphere of activity to northern Europe. With a fleet of 27 container ships from 224 to 907 TEUs, UFS is already seen everywhere in the Mediterranean. Its website lists 32 scheduled services that link all important container ports in southern Europe as well as the Maghreb, the Levant and the Black Sea area.
The main hubs serviced by the company are Gioia Tauro, Taranto, Cagliari, Malta, Barcelona, Valencia, Piraeus, Damietta, Port Said and Constanza. UFS expects to carry about one million TEUs this year. A number of services are operated in cooperation with other feeder companies such as Metz Container Line, EMES or Tarros. The company almost exclusively carries transshipments from “global carriers” and therefore UFS itself doesn’t chase after short-see cargoes at all. UFS was created at the beginning of 1999 by the merger of three important feeder operators: the Greek Camou Marine, Mediterranean Feeders Ltd (Island Man) and Med Express Italia in Genoa. Since last year, UFS has been officially based in the Marshall Islands. Its operational coordination centre is in the Cypriot port city of Limassol. In May 2004, the company decided to leave the Mediterranean for the first time by opening service to the Atlantic side of Spain. That Iberia Service now links Valencia and Barcelona with Lisbon, Bilbao, Gijon, Vigo and Leixoes. Next month, UFS will come north for the first time by starting a service from Antwerp and Rotterdam to Vigo, Leixoes and Lisbon.
The first sailing will take place in Rotterdam on July 4 with the 301-TEU Jan Mitchell, which was chartered especially for the new service. As second ship for the line, the Daroja of 312 TEUs will be taken off the Iberia Service. A return trip will take 11 days, so with two ships the company can offer sailings roughly every five or six days. In Rotterdam, the two feeder ships of UFS will load at ECT Delta as well as ECT Home. In Antwerp, both ships will initially pick up their cargoes at P&O Ports in the Delwaide Dock (wharf 736). Burger Liner Agencies has been appointed agent in both Benelux ports. This broker confirms that once the new service runs properly and customers are satisfied, UFS will realise its plans to start more feeder services in northern Europe. Incidentally, the company is not the only Mediterranean specialist who wants to conquer northern Europe. X-Press Container Line of Sea Consortium in Singapore also began with services in southern Europe before expanding its network to the Benelux, United Kingdom/Ireland and Scandinavia.
Source: Press Release
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