Grimaldi will operate the service Mediterranean Express independently



From next 10 April the Neapolitan shipowning group Grimaldi will operate the service Mediterranean Express (MEX independently), inaugurated last October, concluding the collaboration with the Navitrans French ( on 13 October 2010). The line, that it connects the Mediterranean to the West Africa, will be managed entirely by the partenopeo group that will place side by side to the Republic of Rome, currently employed on such route, the ship ro/ro-multipurpose Eurocargo Istanbul.

Grimaldi has explained that, after an active collaboration with the French marine company based on an agreement "space swap agreement" through which the availability inside each ship of space dedicated to the cargo of the other operator was sanctioned, the decision to finish the cooperation is assumed jointly in order to at best serve own customers on such route.

Service MEX, that it is dedicated to the rotabile transport of goods, container and project cargo, directly connects the ports of Salerno, Genoa, Marseilles and Valencia with Casablanca, Dakar, Lomé, Lagos, Cotonou and Tema with frequency every 18 days.

The introduction of the Eurocargo Istanbul will afford to double the frequency of the service from Salerno, port of call hub of the Grimaldi group that is connected by the company with other ports of the Mediterranean oriental which Pireo, Izmir, Mersin, Yenikoy, Gemlik, Alexandria, Limassol, Ashdod, Beirut and Lattakia.

Moreover, thanks to the three services of the Grimaldi group between the Europe North and the West Africa, the goods in origin from the transported Mediterranean and through service MEX can be reshipped to Dakar and to continue for the ports of Banjul, Conakry, Freetown, Monrovia, Abidjan, Douala, Boom, Pointe Noire and Luanda.

L'Eurocargo Istanbul, of property of the Neapolitan group, is long 195 meters and has a tonnage of 29.400 tons. The unit can transport, to a speed of 20 knots, 2,300 linear meters of rotabile cargo and container, besides 500 cars/van, or a mix of 1.400 linear meters of rotabile cargo, 300 teu and 500 cars/van. The ship will be employed in service MEX until the next month of september in order then to be replaced from an unit with the same specification of the Republic of Rome, guaranteeing, in this way, a greater cargo ability.