Port NOLA President and CEO Brandy D. Christian said the new service expands New Orleans' direct connectivity to key ports in Asia and offers additional options.

“We are pleased to welcome THE Alliance's new service to the Port of New Orleans,” said Christian. “This new direct service to Asia highlights the industry's continued investment in the New Orleans market. We look forward to continuing to work with our long-time partner, Hapag Lloyd, as well as new Port NOLA carriers ONE, HMM and Yang Ming, to make this service a success for our shippers and carrier partners. ”

 The direct ports of call will be Kaohsiung - Hong Kong - Yantian - Ningbo - Shanghai - Busan - (Panama) - Houston - Mobile - New Orleans - (Panama) - Kaohsiung and the new service will be provided by Ports America at the container terminal from Napoleon Avenue.

The additional capacity will support Port NOLA's growing export business for commodities such as resin, poultry, forestry and agricultural products.

While known for its export growth, the port saw loaded import TEU growth of 13% last year.

This ne direct container service to Asia adds to Port NOLA's two existing direct Asia services, including MSC's Lone Star Express, with Maersk and ZIM as partners, and CMA CGM's PEX 3 service with COSCO, Evergreen and OOCL. as partners.

Port NOLA is currently in the process of an expansion project at the Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal that will add four new 100-foot gauge container gantry cranes in the fourth quarter of 2021.

This expansion will increase the capacity to one million TEU and allow the port to work larger ships more efficiently. Port NOLA also launched the tender process for a potential USD 1.5 billion multimodal container terminal with a capacity of two million TEU to serve the largest container ships calling in the Gulf of Mexico.