The FESCO Egypt Direct Line (FEDL), connecting Alexandria, Egypt, with Novorossiysk in southern Russia, bypassing the need for transshipment ports, has been launched by FESCO Transportation Group, the press service of the Russian shipping company reported on Wednesday.
The first ship on the route arrived at the port of Alexandria on Wednesday night and, after loading, departed on the same day for Novorossiysk, the company reported via Telegram.
The journey time either way between Alexandria's El Dekheila port and Novorossiysk will be six days, with departures from each port scheduled for every other week.
Speaking at the ‘Transport Week – 2023’ forum in Moscow in November, German Maslov, the FESCO Transportation Group vice-president, stated that the route's primary focus was on transporting refrigerated containers, but that it would also deliver standard cargo.
"The service is mainly focused on the delivery of food and agricultural products in refrigerated containers. The basis of cargo flow in the import from Egypt are vegetables, fruits and food of plant origin, in the export from Russia - fertilizers and various chemicals, food, pulses and other agricultural products, as well as products of the wood processing industry," a company report explained.
According to earlier reports, FESCO started a regular maritime container service between Novorossiysk and Istanbul via the Black Sea in 2022.
FESCO Transportation Group is a leading Russian multi-modal transportation and logistics company which owns a fleet of 36 vessels, operating mainly on its own sea lines. FESCO also has a container park of more than 170,000 twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) units.