Container carriers weren’t taking any chances with what grew to a Category 4 hurricane, steering some vessels away from a Gulf Coast port expected to be hit by the powerful storm.
Carrier schedules showed five of 13 services bypassed calls at the Port of New Orleans this week because of Hurricane Laura.
According to data provided to American Shipper by BlueWater Reporting, vessels skipping Port NOLA this week were the:
• Maersk Kolkata, operated by the 2M Alliance.
• Gulf Bridge, operated by the OCEAN Alliance.
• MSC Alicante, operated by the 2M Alliance.
• APL Holland, operated by the OCEAN Alliance.
• AS Cleopatra, operated by SeaLand/MSC.
The Kolkata departed the Port of Mobile on Thursday and was sailing to Miami, according to Marine Traffic. The Gulf Bridge reportedly had already arrived in Miami from Alabama.
Both the Alicante and Holland had departed Altamira, Mexico, and were expected to berth at Port Houston on Saturday, according to Marine Traffic.
The AS Cleopatra departed Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, on Sunday and was slated to berth in Houston on Thursday. Although Port Houston remained closed Thursday, all terminals were expected to reopen Friday.
BlueWater said that of the 21 container services that call Houston, none announced they were omitting the port this week.
Port NOLA was able to remain operational Thursday. Its schedule showed three ships, the Express Brazil, MSC Charleston and Container Express, were in port Thursday. The NYK Meteor is expected to arrive in port at 4 p.m. Friday.
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Click for more American Shipper/FreightWaves stories by Senior Editor Kim Link-Wills.
