zoomImage Courtesy: Korea Line Corp.

South Korea’s newly established SM Line is making a bold entry into the container shipping trades with an initial suite of six services covering the North East Asia - South East Asia, Far East - India and Transpacific routes, Alphaliner informed.

The company, which was incorporated on December 15, 2016 with a capital base of KRW 37 billion (USD 33 million), is scheduled to launch the new services successively over the months of March and April 2017.

SM Line will operate an initial fleet of 11 ships of 1,100-6,600 TEU, six owned and five chartered units, which feature a total capacity of 41,381 TEU.

This will place SM Line as the 37th largest container carrier in the world, according to Alphaliner’s carrier rankings.

The company has acquired 12 containerships of 1,100-6,600 TEU, eight of which are intended for deployment on the carrier’s own services, including as replacements for chartered ships, while the remaining units are expected to be chartered out.

SM Line will operate independently on its core services, covering the East Asia and Far East-US West Coast routes, while the shipping line will rely on slot charters from other carriers only on the Far East - India routes.