Newbuild Cosco Belgium calls at Port of Antwerp

Operating under the Hong Kong flag, this ULCC is 366 m long, 51 m wide and when fully loaded has a draft of 15.5 m. It is the first of eight 13,380 teu vessels ordered by COSCO from the Chinese NACKS shipyard in April 2008. Designed to meet the latest environmental standards, this series of newbuildings represents the largest ship type so far built by any shipyard in China. All eight vessels will be delivered by 2014.

The Cosco Belgium is the 55^th ULCC (more than 10,000 teu) to call at the port of Antwerp and according to Eddy Bruyninckx, CEO of Antwerp Port Authority, it demonstrates that the port of Antwerp is fully accessible to the very largest container ships in the world, thanks among other things to the deepening of the Scheldt making Antwerp accessible to ships with a draught of up to 16 m travelling upstream.

The Cosco Belgium will be deployed on the CKYH Alliance’s weekly Asia-Europe NE3 service.