Japanese carrier NYK Line plans to provide its customers further shipping options by introducing a direct call at the Port of Batangas from August 1.
NYK said the Batangas service comes after it made its first direct call to the province on July 8 as an alternative port for its customers, “considering the recent concerns on Manila Port congestion.”
The ACX Diamond, with a capacity of 2,900 twenty-foot-equivalent units, was used to load and unload a total of 534 TEUs on this ad hoc call, according to NYK in a press statement.
The ship’s southbound rotation on the METEOR service was adjusted to Osaka-Yokkaichi-Nagoya-Shimizu-Tokyo-Yokohama-Kobe-Kaohsiung-Batangas-Ho Chi Minh-Singapore.
For Manila-bound shipments, containers were transshipped at the NYK terminal in Kaohsiung and immediately connected to their ex-Kaohsiung to the Manila leg of NYK’s ITX service.
According to NYK, this is the only service in the Philippines to offer direct connections from Japan to the Southeast Asian countries of Singapore and Vietnam via Batangas.
“It primarily caters to Japan, Asia, North America imports and exports to Asia, Europe, Australia, Middle East and North America, which directly benefits importers/exporters by avoiding a Manila port call,” NYK said in a statement.
Even with the Batangas service, NYK Line said it will continue to provide flexible options to allow shippers to use both the Manila and Batangas gateways.
NYK Line said it considers Batangas as a complementary port to Manila.
Meanwhile, NYK Line’s ACX Pearl is scheduled to arrive in Batangas on July 22, providing container options on Tuesdays in addition to its purely car carrier/roll-on-roll-off-vessel weekly Friday calls.
The NYK Group is not new to the Batangas market as its roll-on-roll-off/pure car carriers have been calling at two Batangas ports—Sta. Clara and Bauan—for the last 10 years.
