A few days ago, South Korea's roll-on/roll-off operator PanStar (PanStar Shipping) Group is planning to open a new Korea-Japan line KJHK (Korea-Japan Hanshin-Kehin Service), which means that another shipping company is about to enter the container liner industry. It is understood that the line will call on five ports, namely Busan, Kobe, Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya, and will officially operate from 30 June.
It is reported, put into the route of the ship named "glory of the voyage" (HONOR VOYAGER), the ship was built in 1998, Panama ship registration, the length of 121.9 metres, width of 21.8 metres, the capacity of about 630 TEU. need to pay attention to is that the "glory of the voyage It should be noted that the life of the "Voyage of Glory" has reached 26 years, according to the calculation of fatigue analysis of ship structure, the design life of ordinary merchant ships is generally 20-25 years, and the ship is put into operation, which may be understood as a "test water".
According to PanStar's official website, the company currently operates four other cargo ships, namely: PANSTAR DREAM ("PanStar Dream", 184TEU), SANSTAR DREAM ("Sanstar Dream" (PANSTAR DREAM, 210 TEU), PANSTAR GENIE (PANSTAR GENIE, 264 TEU) and PANSTAR GENIE NO.2 (PANSTAR GENIE 2, 264 TEU).
PanStar's route network
Eom Sang-hoon, PanStar's vice chairman, said the competition on the Korea-Japan route is fierce, but he believes PanStar can make a breakthrough. He said, "It is always difficult to enter new markets, but we have been exploring the container business for 10 years."
Founded in 1990, PanStar started out as a freight forwarder, launched a passenger roll-on/roll-off service between Busan and Osaka in 2002, and expanded its shipping business over the next two decades. Currently, PanStar's business includes cargo transport, ro-ro transport, international express delivery, and ship and crew management.
In terms of cargo transportation, PanStar operates ocean and intermodal services to various cities in Japan, including direct services to Osaka, the industrial centre of Japan, and Tsuruga, one of the major ports on the west coast of Japan, as well as a daily express service to all of Japan.PanStar has established a same-day customs clearance and loading/unloading system with its own customs clearance license, which ensures that cargo is transported from Korea to Japan within 18 hours and door-to-door delivery within 2 days, minimising transit time for import and export of goods.
Today, the company believes it has gained enough experience in cargo trading and plans to expand its reach to more regions, including Chinese and Southeast Asian ports, next year.
Yim Sang-hoon said the synergy between the routes can be exploited by transporting high-value goods that need to be transported quickly via passenger-roller ships and general consumer goods by container ships.
In addition to PanStar, two other major consortia in South Korea have recently planned to enter the shipping industry by launching environmentally friendly fuel marine transport businesses: one is Lotte Global Logistics, a subsidiary of Lotte Group, which will operate two ammonia-fuelled carriers, and the other is Hanwha Marine, a subsidiary of Hanwha Group, which has set up Hanwha Shipping Co. However, this has been met with protests from Korea's small and medium-sized shipping companies, arguing that large companies transporting products on their own will harm the interests of smaller carriers, thus triggering a nationwide supply chain crisis.
Yim Sang-hoon said PanStar is willing to cooperate with local Korean carriers to provide joint services. "Recently, foreign carriers have also launched Korean-Japanese express services, which has affected the revenues of Korean carriers, and I hope this will push for more cooperation between Korean carriers."
PanStar's choice to launch a container liner shipping business at this time may have something to do with the boom in intra-Asian trade in recent years. According to Container Trade Statistics Ltd (CTS), the world completed 173.8 million TEU of containerised freight in 2023, with intra-Asia having the highest volume of export containers shipped at 45,139,600 TEUs.On the demand side, global demand grew by 1.7 million TEUs from 2019-2023, while intra-Asia markets grew by 2.9 million TEUs over the same period. The high volume and strong growth of containerised traffic within the Asian region has provided a breeding ground for the establishment and growth of liner shipping companies.
In addition, it is not the first time that a roll-on/roll-off operator enters the container transport field. Italian shipping company Grimaldi Lines and American shipping company Crowley Liner Services have both taken a similar path, and the two shipping companies are currently ranked 31st and 59th in the global top 100 container liner capacity ranking respectively.
From PanStar's growth trajectory, this shipping company since its inception has been towards the direction of business diversification, through the supply chain of warehousing, freight transport, shipping agency, customs clearance and other links, to create a "small but beautiful" integrated logistics system. And in the current situation of global supply chain tension, a cabin is difficult to find the situation of high freight rates reappeared, such a speed and efficiency of the container liner company to the market, just in time.
https://www.cnss.com.cn/html/gkdt/20240627/353927.html
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