Arkas fixes its largest ever box vessel
Fast expanding Turkish container carrier Arkas Line has fixed the largest container vessel in its history. The 6,078 teu Niederelbe-controlled CONTI BASEL (Hanjin 5300-II) has been fixed for a period of 8-12 months at a rate of $6,500 per day. The CONTI BASEL is, by far, the largest container vessel ever to join the Arkas fleet - currently, the carrier’s biggest container vessel being the 2,837 teu EMMA A. (STX 2800). The CONTI BASEL will join Arkas in early July on a new joint service with Seago Line (the intra Europe arm of APM-Maersk) that will connect the Eastern Mediterranean area with the Black Sea (See issue 2016-23). This new service, dubbed ‘EBS’ by Arkas and ‘Black Sea' by Seago, will be operated with four ships, with Seago providing the three others, comprising the 6,078 teu CONTI DARWIN and CONTI STOCKHOLM and the 5,576 teu MARCH. The three ‘CONTI’-prefixed units were built by South Korea’s Hanjin Heavy Industries in 1999-2003 for Niederelbe Schiffahrt (NSB), with a nominal capacity of 5,608-5,752 teu. They started their careers with long term charters to Hanjin Shipping, which named them HANJIN BASEL, HANJIN COPENHAGEN and HANJIN ATHENS. They reverted to the ‘CONTI’ names in 2013- 2016 after redelivery by Hanjin and have since been traded on the open charter market. Their capacities have been boosted to 6,078 teu this winter though the inclusion of an extra deck tier. |