Bucking the downward trend, Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) has upgraded its existing Australia vessel service with one of the world’s largest and most environmentally-adapted car carriers.
Built at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering yard in Korea, the MV Tijuca is capable of carrying up to 8,000 cars or a combination of 3,486 cars and 466 trucks/buses, and features reinforced and moveable vehicle decks with an extra wide and strong 320 tonne capacity stern ramp.
Offering greater capacity for high and heavy rolling cargoes such as agricultural, mining and construction machinery, and non-containerised and static cargoes such as power generation and mining equipment, the service will provide six sailings per month from Europe including four direct from North America.
Greg Martin, Regional Director for WWL Australia, said: “As we welcome Tijuca today, we are already working closely with the Port of Melbourne Corporation evaluating marine terminal requirements for our next generation Mark V ro-ro vessels, to be launched in 2011, and for the longer term in the port of Melbourne.”
Emphasising WWL’s long-term goals to upgrade the ro-ro fleet on the Australian route, the company has also stressed its concentration on providing a cost-effective supply chain to meet the growing demands of its customer base.
