The Port of Cork is delighted to announce the start of a new weekly direct service to Penn Terminal in Pennsylvania and the Port of Wilmington in North Carolina. This gives Ireland its first direct container service to the USA in many years.

Port of Cork
Port of Cork

The new service will commence on June 6th with the sailing of the Independent Vision. ICL will sail from the Port of Cork every Saturday arriving on the East Coast of the USA 10 days later, offering Irish exporters the most reliable and fastest delivery times for their intercontinental supply chains. The new service, will use a fleet of four vessels with an average capacity of 2,800 TEU.

CEO of the Port of Cork, Brendan Keating said: “The Port of Cork is delighted with this opportunity to work with ICL and support this new direct route to the US. The timing is perfect with the opening of our new €80 million Cork Container Terminal in Ringaskiddy on the horizon, and has the potential to grow cargo volumes to and from Ireland. This is a fantastic strategic development for the Port of Cork as we look to develop Ringaskiddy as a modern logistics hub.”

CEO of ICL John Kirkland said: “Ireland is a market we have been keen to develop for a while and we sincerely hope the Irish trade will support this commitment by ICL to bring Ireland its first direct weekly service to the USA East Coast. We look forward to working with the Port of Cork with their exciting expansion plans.”

ICL has been serving the North Atlantic trade for 35 years and is consistently named the most reliable carrier.