By: OrePulse

Ocean Network Express has begun operating a new fortnightly container service linking Mozambique's three main commercial ports to Mauritius, with the inaugural sailing departing Port Louis on September 18.

The service, called the Mozambique Coastal Link, follows a rotation of Port Louis, Maputo, Beira, Nacala and back to Port Louis. ONE first announced the service on August 6 and designed it jointly with COSCO Shipping. In a statement, ONE said the route is meant "to provide more robust connectivity between Far East Asia and Mozambique via Port Louis, ensuring reliable transit times and increased capacity."

Three vessels, each with capacity in the 1,200- to 1,800-TEU range, are deployed on the loop: Contship Day and Cape Flores, both operated by COSCO, and ONE's own Bright Fuji. A roughly 42-day rotation across the three ships produces the fortnightly call frequency at each port on the route.

The new link lets shippers move containerized cargo among Maputo, Beira and Nacala without arranging separate feeder connections between the three ports, which together handle the bulk of Mozambique's seaborne trade and serve as gateways to several landlocked neighbors. Maputo, in the south, connects to the Maputo Development Corridor; Beira serves Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi via the Beira Corridor; and Nacala, in the north, serves Malawi and Zambia through the Nacala Corridor.

By routing the service through Port Louis, ONE and COSCO are positioning Mauritius as a transshipment link between the three Mozambican ports and long-haul Far East Asia strings, rather than requiring cargo bound to or from Asia to connect directly at a Mozambican port. That structure is intended to give shippers more consistent transit times and added capacity on the Asia-Mozambique corridor compared with existing feeder arrangements.

The launch adds a joint ONE-COSCO offering to a Southern African coastal and feeder network in which carriers have been competing to link secondary ports more directly to major transshipment hubs. For Mozambique, easier interconnection among Maputo, Beira and Nacala could reduce the need for cargo moving between the country's own ports to travel via hubs outside Mozambique, potentially cutting costs and transit times for both domestic trade and goods serving the neighboring landlocked states the three corridors were built to reach.

The joint deployment also reflects a broader pattern of container lines pairing capacity on secondary regional routes, spreading vessel costs across partners while still offering shippers a single, scheduled coastal service rather than relying on ad hoc feeder bookings between individual Mozambican ports.