To tackle the tight space situation on the Trans-Pacific tradelanes during the pandemic, and to provide more shipping capacity to our customers to help them meet their supply chain challenges, OOCL and OOCL Logistics are working together to develop a brand new multi-modal container service from China to the US East Coast. This innovative product is a combination of the “Chang An” block train service from Xian to Kaliningrad, Russia, followed by feeder to Bremerhaven, and with OOCL ocean service from Bremerhaven to various USEC ports.
The first multi-modal container service run by OOCL and OOCL Logistics departed Xian on August 4, 2021. It is the first of its kind to be operated by an ocean carrier connecting China and North America by using the Asia-Europe Land Bridge and the Atlantic Ocean.
The “Chang An” block train runs on the China-Europe Land Bridge rail network, connecting the capital city of Shaanxi Province with various rail hubs in Europe. Being the last major stop for China-Europe freight trains before leaving China and heading on through Kazakhstan, Xian is the biggest China-Europe block train hub.
An important project of the One-Belt-One-Road Initiative, the China-Europe block trains are now running stably with high frequency. The pandemic and the following global reopening have created high demand for the slots on these block trains. Statistics released by the China Railway in July 2021 indicates that, in the first half of this year, a total of 7,377 block trains were dispatched from China with a total volume of around 707,000 TEU. That ensures a regular connection with TAT service which is on a weekly basis.
This product innovation is a fantastic demonstration of the synergy between OOCL and OOCL Logistics, by combining OOCL’s strengths of its own fleet of equipment and its competitiveness on the Transatlantic trade with OOCL Logistics’ end-to-end capabilities. Our new block train product is also a clear sign of the commitment of OOCL Group to our customers, showing that we aim to deploy all available resources to provide additional transportation capacity to the market, at a time when slots on traditional ocean services are simply not sufficient to meet the high level of demand.
