Duisburg to become hub for containerised freight from North Africa
Duisburg, a well-known intermodal hub on the New Silk Road, is attracting more freight from other regions of the world. Starting from January 2022, the German terminal will handle containers from North Africa, particularly from Morocco and Algeria. This is a result of new multimodal solutions, which were developed by CMA CGM and combine shipping services with rail freight connections.
In January 2022, the containerised freight from North Africa will get a new and shorter transport way to deliver to the dynamic Rhur region in Germany. The boxes will be moved by sea and rail via the French port of Marseille. This solution was developed by CMA CGM, the France-based shipping line. Initially, the containers will be delivered from the Maghreb to Marseille by using three core services of CMA CGM (TMX1, TMX2 and Euronaf). Then, they will be moved in two days to Duisburg by freight trains. The Marseille-Duisburg intermodal service has a weekly capacity of 105 TEU and is devoted to transporting high-cube boxes.
More freight from Asia
Besides North Africa, the multimodal solutions from CMA CGM provide more opportunities for delivering containers from Asia, including China and Turkey, to Duisburg. As for Turkey, this option is available by combining the TMX1 and TMX2 shipping services and the Marseille-Duisburg intermodal connections. Duisburg is reached from the Turkish ports (Aliaga, Ambarli, Gebze, Gemlik) in 7-10 days depending on the departure point. The China-dedicated multimodal service is provided via Fos, another French port near Marseille. It consists of CMA CGM’s two shipping core services MEX and MEX2 from and to Asia as well as the Fos-Duisburg container train with a weekly capacity of 96 TEU. Transit time from both French ports, Marseille and Fos, to Duisburg is around two days.