Another new ship for OOCL named at her namesake port
OOCL KOBE follows hard on the heels of OOCL YOKOHAMA

The first of sixteen 4,578-TEU vessels built by Samsung Heavy Industries for OOCL was named on July 20, 2007 at the Port of Kobe in Japan, followed closely the christening of its sister vessel, OOCL Yokohama in Korea on July 19, 2007.


The newbuilding was named the m.v.OOCL Kobe by sponsor, Tatsuo Yada, Mayor of Kobe, at the port of Kobe, just a few days after the 140th anniversary of the Port.

The Group has always kept its fleet expansion and deployment plans under constant review. The construction of this series of Panamax vessels are in line with the needs of the industry. OOCL will operate a fleet of 18 of these Panamax class vessels in total once the 16 vessels built by Samsung Heavy industries are delivered, in addition to the two vessels of the same class delivered earlier by Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard at the end of 2006.

Mr. Philip Chow, CEO of OOCL said in his commemorative address, “This series of ships was designed with Panama Canal crossing in mind, for serving the important Asia to USEC trade. However, their versatile design will also provide efficient deployment options in many other trades.”

The m.v. OOCL Kobe will be deployed on the KTX1 service. The port rotation is: Tokyo / Yokohama / Nagoya / Kobe / Osaka / Kaohsiung / Hong Kong / Singapore / Shekou / Hong Kong / Xiamen and back to Tokyo in a 21-day round trip.