With the deployment of a fourth vessel, the Group improves the quality of the service offered between the Mediterranean and West Africa Thanks to the deployment of an additional vessel, the Grimaldi Group proceeds, as from today, with the further enhancement of its Mediterranean Express service (MEX) which regularly links the Mediterranean to West Africa.
The m/vessel “Grande Ghana” (built in 2009) joins the other three vessels already deployed on the service, being the “Repubblica di Argentina”, “Repubblica del Brasile” and “Grande Costa d’Avorio”.
The “Grande” class ro/ro multipurpose vessels have an ideal cargo capacity of 2.000 cars/vans, 2.000 linear metres of rolling cargo and 800 TEU each, and are equipped with two cranes on the weather deck with a lifting capacity of 40 tonnes. With a gross tonnage of about 52.000 tonnes and a length of 210 metres, the ro/ro multipurpose vessels of the “Repubblica” class can instead ideally carry 2.400 linear metres of rolling cargo, 700 cars/vans and 600 TEU each.
Launched in 2010, the MEX service is dedicated to the transport of rolling cargo, containers and project cargo, directly linking the ports of Valencia, Marseilles, Genoa, Livorno and Salerno with Casablanca (Morocco), Dakar (Senegal), Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Lagos (Nigeria), Cotonou (Benin) and Lome (Togo). Thanks to the deployment of this new unit, the MEX service increases by 30% its cargo capacity, both for containers and rolling cargo. Furthermore, the frequency is being improved from 14 to 11 days. The recent addition in the itinerary of the call at Livorno satisfies the needs of all those transport companies which operate in Northern Italy, Tuscany and in the Emilia Romagna region.
The Grimaldi Group regularly links North Europe with West Africa through three regular services, deploying about 20 con/ro multipurpose vessels, for the transport of rolling cargo, containers and project cargo. Thanks to these connections, cargo can be shipped to Dakar and then transhipped, with very competitive rates and transit time, to the African ports of Takoradi, Luanda, Pointe Noire, Douala, Libreville, Tema, Freetown, Conakry. Finally, through its various regular infra-Mediterranean services calling at the hub of Salerno, the Group also offers transhipment connections with other Italian ports such as Catania, Palermo and Cagliari as well as various ports in the Mediterranean such as Malta, Tunis, Piraeus, Izmir, Mersin, Gemlik, Alexandria, Limassol, Ashdod, Beirut and Lattakia.
