Sea Consortium to start India east coast service next month

Sea Consortium is launching another service to the Indian port of Chennai from north China starting from September.

The new service, called the New India East Coast Service, follows the successful Straits Madras X-press (SMX) service, which has been operating for 15 months.

The North China Chennai (NCC) service has been modeled around another of the Sea Consortium Far East services, the Korea Strait India (KSI) service, which calls at ports in China and on the west coast of India.

The NCC is jointly operated with Wan Hai Lines & CNC (Taiwan's Cheng Lie Navigation, now part of CMA CGM) and will make stops at three China ports; Qingdao, Lianyungang and Shanghai, before carrying on direct to the Straits and Chennai.

The full NCC rotation is: Qingdao, Lianyungang, Shanghai, Singapore, Port Klang, Chennai (Wed/Fri), Port Klang, Singapore, Hong Kong, Qingdao.

The first sailing will be undertaken by the 1,700-TEU King Byron, which is scheduled to depart from Qingdao on September 12.

Together with the current SMX, Sea Consortium will provide a bi-weekly sailing between Chennai and the Straits. The SMX occupies a Sunday/Monday window in Chennai, while NCC will take on a Wednesday/Friday window, a statement issued on behalf of Sea Consortium members said.

In addition, SMX provides a direct call between Chennai and Penang on the following port rotation: Chennai (Sun/Mon), Penang (Fri/Sat), Singapore (Sun/Mon), Port Kelang (Tues/Wed), returning to Chennai.

With the new NCC service, Sea Consortium will provide two separate direct services connecting China to both the east and west coasts of India.

Ben Line Agencies (China) Ltd is the agent for Sea Consortium.