THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020486
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Newport News Marine Terminal will get a big boost after a mid-sized shipping line shifts most of its container business in Hampton Roads there in September.
Ships of the Mediterranean Shipping Co. Inc. will begin stopping exclusively at the Peninsula terminal, the Virginia Port Authority and the shipping line announced Tuesday. Some of its vessels currently call at Portsmouth Marine Terminal.
Mediterranean Shipping's consolidation will double the number of containers moving through the small Newport News terminal, while having little effect on the rapidly growing Portsmouth terminal's business, a port official said.
``The growth at (Portsmouth) will take care of the void,'' said Joseph A. Dorto, general manager and chief executive of Virginia International Terminals, which operates the state-owned port terminals.
Newport News Marine Terminal, the port authority's smallest, handled the equivalent of 19,330 20-foot containers last year. The port's other terminals in Norfolk and Portsmouth handled about 875,000.
Mediterranean Shipping was a small player at the Portsmouth terminal, but it will be the biggest carrier at the Newport News terminal.
It will load and unload about 20,000 more containers a year at the Newport News terminal as a result of this move, Dorto said.
``In a smaller terminal, the service is going to be more personalized,'' said Vito Piraino, Mid-Atlantic regional director for Mediterranean Shipping.
At the Portsmouth terminal, Mediterranean Shipping sometimes had to fight with bigger shipping lines for cranes and other services, Dorto said. At Newport News, Mediterranean will be guaranteed two cranes to work its vessels, he said.
The consolidation will also mean steadier work for the 300 International Longshoremen's Association members in Newport News, said George Williams, president of ILA Local 846.
Mediterranean Shipping's vessels carry containers to and from Europe and the Mediterranean in one weekly service and to and from South Africa and Australia in another.
The service to Europe is the one that will move to Newport News. That service is growing dramatically for Mediterranean Shipping.
It will handles about 10,000 of its own containers in that trade lane as well as 7,000 containers for Polish Ocean Lines.
Mediterranean Shipping is also talking with a South Korean shipping company about moving its containers between the U.S. East Coast and northern Europe, Dorto said. That would add at least 3,000 more containers to the service, he said. by CNB