Hapag-Lloyd christens first of five 10,500 TEU ships at Valparaiso

Hapag-Lloyd christens first of five 10,500 TEU ships at Valparaiso HAPAG-LLOYD has held a naming ceremony for the first of its five new 10,500 TEU containerships, the Valparaiso Express, at the Terminal Pacifico Sur (TPS) in the port of Valparaiso, where the new ship will make regular calls. The first vessel in the new Valparaiso Express class will operate the revised Europe-South America west coast service in which four of the five newbuildings are replacing older Panmax ships, while a second Panmax size loop (SW2) and two slot charter agreements (EW1 and EW2) in the same trade lane will be terminated, reported Marine Link. The roundtrip of the Valparaiso Express will take nine weeks with the following port rotation: Rotterdam, London, Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Caucedo, Cartagena, Manzanillo (Panama), Buenaventura, Callao, Puerto Angamos, Valparaiso, Callao, Buenaventura, Manzanillo (Panama), Cartagena, Caucedo and Rotterdam. Chief operating officer Anthony Firmin said: "South America and especially Chile are very important markets for us and we will be able to serve particularly our reefer customers much better with the new ships." The second vessel from the series ordered in April 2015 was delivered to Hapag-Lloyd at the Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea. The remaining three ships are due for delivery by April 2017.