Kiel Added to Swedish Carrier's Service

The Port of Kiel has been added to the liner service network of Sweden's Rederi AB TransAtlantic.

Vessels operating on the company's Bothnia Line between Kerni and  Oulu in Finland and Zeebrugge and Antwerp in Belgium are now making a weekly call at the German port, where containers headed overseas via the port of Hamburg are offloaded. They are then tranported by shuttle to Hamburg terminals for further carriage.

The RoLo vessel Transpine, the first Bothnia Line ship to call the port, arrived at the Ostuferhafen on Jan. 30. Two cranes at the terminal unloaded more than 100 containers in under 3 hours, and the ship then continued through the Kiel Canal on its way to Antwerp.

“We are profiting here from our location on the Kiel Canal," said Dr. Dirk Claus, managing director of the Port of Kiel, in the port's announcement. "Our wayport function is a good example of co-operation between Kiel and Hamburg because it means that Finnish cargo can continue to be handled by north German seaports.”

Claus added that Kiel hopes to leverage its position on the canal to build its wayport business further.