Hapag-Lloyd is naming the containership Bremen Express in Bremerhaven. The patron of the 335m long mega containership capable of carrying 8,749 standard containers is Hilde Herwig, wife of Thomas W. Herwig, managing partner of the long-established Bremen logistics company Röhlig.
With its Bremen Express, Hapag-Lloyd has expanded its fleet to 142 containerships with a total capacity of over 514,000 TEU. It has ordered another 15 identical vessels from the South Korean Hyundai Heavy Industries for delivery up the end of 2011. Hapag-Lloyd, which is one of the top five container lines worldwide, is thus preparing to share in the long-term growth in international container transport. In its latest forecast, the international economic research institute Global Insight expects global container transport to surge from 110m TEU in 2007 to 153m TEU by 2012. According to Global Insight, container transport should grow by 7 percent this year, almost twice as fast as world trade at 3.7 percent.