Hanjin and STX to upgrade Vietnam service
Hanjin Shipping and STX Pan Ocean announced over the weekend that they will jointly provide the New Hochiminh Service (NHS), an upgraded version of Hanjin’s existing HPX service, starting in early September.
The NHS service will retain the same port rotation as HPX, but will use faster vessels, the companies said. NHS will deploy three of the carrier's latest containerships: a 1,400-TEU and a 1,100-TEU vessel from Hanjin and one vessel of the same class from STX.
The vessels will run, on average, three knots faster than the ones they replace, something the carriers expect to boost schedule reliability. The new vessels also provide roughly 60 percent increase in capacity to accommodate the rapidly growing volume in the Vietnamese market, particularly in the reefer trade.
The port rotation for the service will be: Busan, Gwangyang, Hong Kong, Hochiminh, Singapore, Pasir Gudang, Hochiminh, Hong Kong, and back to Busan.