Horizon Lines Renews Terminal Agreement, Plans Asia Liner Service
March 1, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Horizon Lines, Inc. (NYSE: HRZ), a U.S. domestic ocean shipping and integrated logistics firm, said that it has reached a binding Memorandum of Understanding with APM Terminals North America for a new six-year U.S. terminal services agreement. The prior agreement with APMT was scheduled to expire on December 10.
The MOU applies to stevedoring and terminal services provided to Horizon Lines by APMT in Jacksonville, Florida; Houston, Texas; Los Angeles, California; Tacoma, Washington and Elizabeth, New Jersey, through 2015, with an option to extend for two years.
Horizon Lines said it has the option to exclude the Elizabeth terminal from the agreement if it chooses to serve the Northeast market from a port not located in New York or New Jersey.
At the same time, Horizon Lines announced plans to launch in December 2010 its own weekly trans-Pacific liner service between Asia and the U.S. West Coast. The new service will utilize the company’s five 2,824 twenty-foot-equivalent-unit capacity, 23-knot, U.S. flag Hunter-class containerships that currently call on Guam and continue on to China as part of a space-charter agreement with Maersk Line.
In preparation for these plans, Horizon Lines said that it and Maersk Line have mutually agreed not to renew their current Asia space-charter agreement when it expires on December 10.
APMT and Maersk Line are divisions of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group.
Horizon projects that the terminal agreement renewal and new Asia service will provide an additional stream of cost savings, revenue growth and resulting earnings improvement in future years.
North Carolina-based Horizon Lines’ primary operating subsidiary, Horizon Lines, LLC, owns or leases a fleet of 20 U.S.-flag containerships and operates five port terminals linking the continental United States with Alaska, Hawaii, Guam, Micronesia and Puerto Rico.
Horizon Logistics manages a domestic and overseas service partner network.
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